Naruto: A Matter of Two Jinchuuriki
by AnonOne
Summary: A different past for two people will change the course of history forever. Uzumaki Naruto was found by the surviving remnants of his mother's clan at the age of five but everything is taken away and he comes to Konoha a very different person. Six years after the Kyuubi attack a second Tailed Beast attack happens worse than before and new jinchuuriki is chosen. GreyishNaruto
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Misashi Kishimoto

Author's Note: Hello everyone. This is my first time writing fanfiction so please help me out by pointing out grammar errors and perhaps suggest some things to help the story flow. Since it's my first time I may rewrite the story since I want this idea to go far. Not as in having alot of favorites or follows, I just want it to be a good story. Anyway I've changed alot of things before the the beginning of the original which will be explained in the background. This has a Naruto and Hinata pairing but very little actual romance (they're only twelve) and mostly a very close friendship.

Background: After a brutal encounter with a fellow Konoha shinobi a five-year old Naruto is given to his mother's relatives. They train him for four years but tragedy strikes leaving Naruto alone. One year later, he returns to Konoha an entirely different person...

Six years later after the Kyuubi, the Nanabi attacks being revived after a mistake by the Akatsuki in the early capture attempt of Fuu the previous jinchuuriki. The damage is worse than before and the loss of Hiashi Hyuuga has left one of the strongest clans in Konoha leaderless along with Konoha desperate for manpower. Expecially when the Uchiha clan massacre follows allowing a ten-year old Naruto to become Konoha's weapon.  
-

Prologue

Sarutobi Hiruzen sat in his office, looking out the window. This year's academy graduates should be taking the genin exam by now. They were a promising class with seven of them coming from very prominent clans, not to mention the last Uchiha. The Hokage sighed. If everyone passed, that would mean one of the teams would be one man short.

"Hokage-sama? You wanted to see me?" Hiruzen looked over to see a young boy with an ANBU fox mask with bright blond hair standing by the doorway. He was a bit on the short side being shorter than most of the academy graduates. He wore the standard ANBU uniform with steel-plated fingerless gloves and armguards. Around his wrists was a thin leather brace with seal markings on top. Underneath them were bandages that covered his skin past his elbows and all the to his dark t-shirt he wore under the armor. He wore a ninjato at his side (a little unusual for ANBU) along with a kunai holster strapped to his right thigh and a standard ninja pack at the back of his waist. He had dark blue pants with lightweight steel kneepads and shinguards. On the ANBU's feet were a pair of grey also steel-toed boots.

"Ah yes, Naruto."

" It's Fox, Hokage-sama" was the rather blunt reply.

"It'll be Naruto for now."

"Hai. What is it that you wanted to see me about?"

"I wish to for you to enter the regular ninja forces now. We are no longer are in a critical situation as we once were four years ago. So I will be taking this opportunity for you to train the jinchuuriki of the Nanabi and to get acquainted with your fellow shinobi."

Naruto tilted his head to the side."Nanabi? From the attack six years ago? Who is the jinchuuriki?"

"She's one of the graduating students and your age. She is unaware of her status and her seal prevents any mental contact and chakra from leaking out. Odd number seal along with an even number seal."

"I see... What do you want me to do with it?"

"I want you to fix it so it would act like your seal but only after you think she is ready to handle being a jinchuuriki. I'm sure you would know when. You will enter the regular forces as a genin and will be placed in the same three-man cell genin team as her under the supervision of Yuuhi Kurenai. She will have full authorization to your files as your new jonin sensei."

"What about Kakashi-sensei?" Even though his voice sounded bland, Hiruzen could tell the disappointment in it. Kakashi had taken up tutoring Naruto ever since he encountered Naruto and his shadow clones training themselves half to death at one of the training grounds two weeks after he'd arrived in Konohagakure. Kakashi, being bored after failing yet another genin team, decided to give him a few pointers in his taijutsu which then led to lightning jutsu several days later. Naruto was very pleased to have someone to train him and Kakashi who failed all his genin teams yet found Naruto to be a very interesting student and formed an unofficial apprenticeship. Though a month and a half later, Naruto was inducted into the ANBU Black Ops due to his unusually high skill and the lack of manpower in Konoha due to _two _Tailed Beasts attacks and not to mention the Uchiha clan massacre. They still found time to train together once in a while and go on missions together.

"Unfortunately he's already taking a genin team consisting of Haruno Sakura, Shino Aburame and Uchiha Sasuke."

"The Uchiha? Oh, because of his sharingan right?" Naruto sighed. "The kid already has a bit of an ego. Kakashi will really have to get rid that fast before it gets to be a real problem. Anyway who's on my team?

"There's Inuzuka Kiba of the Inuzuka clan with his ninken Akamaru and Hyuuga Hinata, the elder daughter of the deceased clan leader Hiashi Hyuuga and the current jinchuuriki of the Nanabi. She is part of the branch family after being deemed unworthy to lead the clan. Her sister is clan heir."

Behind his mask Naruto scowled. He always hated the way the Hyuuga were divided. It was so unlike the way his clan acted. Even if they had no real kekkai genkai, they always were a family constantly pulling pranks on eachother and being loud and rowdy. Never cold or stoic like the Hyuuga and would never brand a relative with a curse seal even though there were a few of those in the Uzumaki clan jutsu library.

Sensing Naruto's discontent, Hiruzen quickly wrapped their conversation by telling Naruto to report at the academy the next day after lunch break was over with his new sensei and avoid showing too much of his skills.

When Naruto left, Hiruzen sighed. He always wanted Naruto to have a normal childhood but just sheer bad luck had changed that. He couldn't help but wonder where was that bright happy kid who always called him jii-san. He never would admit it but he missed that nickname.  
-

Well here is the prologue. I'll try to get on with the story as fast as I can. Sorry it's a little short and bland and that I didn't show much of Naruto's character.


	2. The Genin Teams

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Author's Note: Thanks Leaf Ranger for the review! Naruto is somewhere in between the canon partnership and none at all because of the different way he learned to channel Kurama's power. He has learned to trust Kurama and accept he is part of him which results in his partial jinchuuriki forms without complete loss of control. That is also because of his early interaction with him and early jinchuuriki training though it is different since he has not learned the way Killer Bee has. As for Hinata, Naruto in this story is quite skilled in fuinjutsu so it won't be a big problem. Neji is also still from the Branch Family so he won't be that bad.

_Italic: emphasis, flashbacks_

**Bold: dialogue for non-humans, activated jutsu**

'thought'

"speech"  
-

Chapter One:

The Genin Teams

Hinata sighed. Ino and Sakura were at it again. This time on who gets to sit next Sasuke. They'd come stumbling through the door at the same time arguing about who got there first when they realised the seat next to the new Rookie of the Year was free. Ino jumped on the seat first then Sakura tackled her. Sasuke, being very unwilling to sit next to any fangirl after a certain incident involving lipstick markings on his cheek and the rest of the day filled with killing intent on all sides, he quietly substituded himself with the kid next to Shino. If anything, he can keep the _unhealthely_ obsessed fangirls away.

Umino Iruka stepped into the room. It was pure chaos as usual.

"Alright, please settle down now!" he shouted.

Everyone stumbled into their seats. Sakura and Ino looked up and finally realised Sasuke wasn't next to them. They grumbled and sat in their chairs.

Iruka placed the team roster on the podium.

"As of today, you are all genin. Becoming a genin is only the first step into being a full-fledged ninja..."

And on he went with the post-graduation speech heard every single year. Sensing a few rapidly losing interest, especially when Nara Shikamaru immediately fell asleep, he quickly wrapped up his speech and went on to announcing the teams all down to six. Then...

"Team Seven, Aburame Shino, Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke."

"Hell yeah!" Sakura shouted

"Hell no!" Ino cried out.

Sasuke sweatdropped. Of all the graduates to choose from, it had to be her. Ah, well there was Ino to but still...

Shino raised an eyebrow. The top graduates from this class on the same team was unusual and illogical. Normally it would be the dead-last with the top kunoichi and Rookie of the Year to balance out the teams, not him who placed second just short of a few points in taijutsu behind Sasuke. Unusual indeed...

"And your jonin sensei is Hatake Kakashi. Next, Team Eight will be Inuzuka Kiba and Hyuuga Hinata. Your jonin sensei will be Yuuhi Kurenai."

Hinata perked up. They'd finally announced her name but wasn't there supposed to be a third member? Apparently Kiba noticed too this because he frowned and said...

"Hey, Iruka-sensei who is the third member?"

"Well we were short a student to have full three man squads. So you'll have a teammate who's already a genin. Next is Team Ten with Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Choji and Yamanaka Ino."

Ino groaned, Choji munched on and Shikamaru mumbled something about troublesome women.

"Team Nine is already on active duty so that concludes the teams."  
-

Kiba sat next to Hinata during lunch on a bench outside the academy. She was very quiet hardly said a word. She wore a light beige jacket with fur rimmed around the hem and the end of her sleeves and there was a fire symbol on each of her shoulders. Her hair was very short and stuck out like a duck's tail. The forehead protector tied around her forehead though her bangs covered most of it. Her skin was rather pale and had a bit of lavender in her nearly completely white pupils. They'd been told that their sensei would come and pick them up after lunch. Wanting to break the awkward silence between them, he started a conversation.

"So... I'm Kiba and this is my dog, Akamaru." Akamaru barked out a greeting "You're from the Hyuuga clan right?"

"Hai... I'm from t-the Branch F-Family."

Her voice was soft and he almost missed what she said.

"Right, you've got the Byakugan thingy. A super cool dojutsu right?"

"...Hai. I-It's my kekkei genkai. It l-lets me see far away, through things and around myself."

"Heh, I was right about it being a super cool dojutsu!" He grinned. "Any way who do you think this new guy is? He must've graduated early to already be a genin."

"W-Well... he could also be older than us."

"Oh yeah! That too. Hmmm... maybe there was an extra genin or something and had to wait for us to graduate."

"M-Maybe but Iruka-sensei said he was already a g-genin so he'd probably have more experience t-than us"

"Probably, but there's no way he's stronger than me!"

Hinata smiled. She always wished she had that confidence but it never came. She took a bite from her rice bun and her eyes wandered to a couple of teachers nearby. Seeing her, they glared back and Hinata shrunk away. She never knew why but everyone in the village hated her. Well mostly just the adults and older kids. She disliked being around the Hyuuga compound for long. They were way scarier there with hate mixed in with the regular cold stare up close and personal. Instead she looked at Sakura and Sasuke with the latter becoming increasingly uncomfortable as the former kept trying to get close to him. Sasuke was quite cold and constantly moody since the Uchiha massacre four years before. But one day he showed up less... indifferent and opened up easier. It was quite a pleasant change from the dark brooding boy.

A few minutes later, the bell went.  
-

Yuuhi Kurenai stood outside the door to the class that held her new potential students. She had been excited to get a team since becoming a jonin recently. She sighed. The new genin wasn't here yet and she couldn't go in without him. And he was twenty minutes late. Suddenly a somewhat short, heavily armed blond with an black eyepatch covering his left eye and whisker-like markings on his cheek walked in dragging a grey-haired man with a mask covering the lower half of his face and wore a standard Konoha uniform.

"Now, now, Naruto we're here now can you, um, please take off the paralytic sealing tag?"

"No, because you're not going to be late by two hours in picking up your team without me making sure. I thought I would spare them from waiting such a long time this time. If you're going to fail them, get it over and done with."

Okay, that was unexpected. She guessed the blond was the gaki she would have, but what disturbed her was the lack of emotion in his voice. Just by saying those last sentences she should have heard amusement, annoyance, scorn, any feeling. But she heard _nothing_.

The blond called Naruto turned towards Kurenai.

"Yuuhi-sensei, right?"

"Just Kurenai-sensei for now. I assume your my missing little genin."

"Hai, I apologize for being late. I've been trying to get Kakashi-sensei to come earlier than usual."

Kurenai had known about Kakashi's infamous tardiness and incredibly obvious excuses as she and the other jonin were also victims. His other bad habit included constantly reading those sorry-excuse-for-litterature Icha Icha porn books. These habits were only rivaled by a certain man in a creepy green spandex outfit. Kurenai was deeply impressed by the blond. She'd never seen someone _make_ Kakashi _only_ twenty minutes late.

"Well we should go in. No point in letting them wait any longer now."

Kurenai slid open the door and to her surprise a brush fell to the floor with a clack.

"Damn it!" said a kid with a dog on his head.

She raised an eyebrow. The boy wore a dark grey jacket rimmed with dark brown fur with his hood up covering his wild brown hair. He had slit-like eyes, red triangular markings on his cheeks and his canine teeth stuck out a little. His forehead protector was around his head like the blue-haired girl next to him.

Naruto came in and dumped Kakashi unceremoniously on the ground and ripped off a highly complex seal tag on his back. Kakashi groaned as he stood up then took out a dreaded orange book.

"You're late!" out came an angry cry.

Kakashi looked over to the pink-haired girl with green eyes and forehead protector worn as a hairband. She wore a red dress with shorts underneath. Sitting next to her were her was a tall boy with black sunglasses. He wore a high collored jacket that covered pretty much his whole face except his eyes. The other boy next to him was shorter with raven black hair that stuck up a bit at the back. He had a high collared blue t-shirt with the Uchiha clan crest on the back and white shorts. The boys wore their forehead protector around their heads.

"Maa, maa. Team Seven right?"

"Yes... why were you late?" replied the tall boy.

"Heh, it's a long story about about a crazy assassin threatening to burn my books."

"Liar!" said Sakura. Kurenai would've said the same thing were it not for the way Naruto had just hauled him in.

"But it's actually true! Oh, nevermind. Meet me on the roof in five minutes." And he body-flickered away. Team Seven filed out leaving the last two genin alone except for their sensei and new teammate.

"I assume you two are Team Eight, right?" They nodded.

"Very well then. Let's go somewhere so we can properly introduce ourselves."  
-

They sat down on one of picnic benches within the academy walls. Naruto's eye wandered off to the tree off to the side with the lone swing. He used to come here when he was small. It was a little haven away from the many death glares on the busy streets of Konoha but it was also the loneliest of places. He spent many hours just sitting and watching the families picking their children like someone who was only looking out a window. So many hours he spent wishing he could join them...

"So," Naruto focused to the red-eyed jonin."Let's begin our introductions. I'll start off first. My name is Yuuhi Kurenai. I'm a new jonin specialising in genjutsu. I like hanging out in the evening, reading a good story and having dango with my friend Anko." Naruto noted that the name Asuma was missing from that list."I dislike perverts, people who disregard kunoichi, and cake. My hobbies include practicing genjutsu and sometimes on the former. My dream is to turn all three of you into a splendid team. You next." She pointed to the quiet, dark blue-haired girl Naruto knew as Hinata.

"Ano... my n-name is Hyuuga Hinata. I-I like cinnamon r-rolls and zenzai and my l-little sister Hanabi." Hanabi? Naruto knew from what little he observed from Hinata after he left the Hokage's office yesterday is that her family or former family acted with great indifference to her. Even her sister.

'She's very forgiving' he thought.

"I d-dislike seafood, and the s-s-separation o-of t-the H-Hyuuga." Naruto was surprised for her to say this out loud. She seemed like the least likely person to speak out against anything given her incredibly shy and timid personality. He saw Kurenai raise an eyebrow and Kiba frowning. "My h-hobby is p-pressing flowers. M-My dream is to p-prove that I'm n-not weak or a f-failure." Naruto inwardly smiled faintly at this while leaving nothing on his face. A great goal indeed though she'll have to come out of her shell for that to fully happen."A-And I w-want to find out w-why everyone d-doesn't l-like me." He almost flinched at that,_ almost_. Funny, seven years ago he wondered the exact same thing a few meters off to his left. Kiba gave a curious look at her and Kurenai looked away.

"Well, your turn then" she said looking back at Kiba.

"Right! I'm Inuzuka Kiba from the Inuzuka clan and this is my partner, Akamaru." The small white bundle gave a little bark."I like doing everything with Akamaru and beef jerky. I dislike cats and anyone who insults or hurts Akamaru." 'He's very loyal' Naruto noted. "My hobbies are taking walks with Akamaru and training in my clan's jutsu. My dream is to become one of the best shinobi to ever come out of the Inuzuka clan!" After observing Kiba, Naruto could see that he had overwhelming confidence, very outspoken, was rather headstrong and a little gruff. Completely opposite to Hinata.

"All right." She turned to Naruto."What about you?"

Naruto cleared his throat. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I specialise in ninjutsu, kenjutsu and fuinjutsu." His sensei and teammates were giving him curious looks when he realized genin don't have specialties. Oops. Fitting was going to be a little harder than he thought. "I like reading, ramen and a_ furry_ friend of mine." Like ramen was a bit of an understatement, he was addicted to it and considered it to be a weird jonin habit that many pick up over time. Same thing with reading about fuinjutsu though less than Kakashi with his porn. "My dislikes... I rather not say." Most of the villagers of course. "My hobbies... well I'd rather not say either." Since his hobbies included making fuinjutsu that could explode and back fire seventy percent of the time if he wasn't careful and training normally twelve hours on his free days with shadow clones that included a training regime just as scary as Might Guy's. "My dream is... to become stronger... for a purpose I will not say." More curious glances. Naruto didn't want to say it yet to almost complete strangers and it brought back bad memories.

"Well I guess that's all for introduction. Now we have the real test."

"What!? What do you mean? We passed our genin exam didn't we?"

"That was just a pre-test. The one I'm about to administer is has a sixty-six percent failure rate. Those who fail are sent back to the academy." They all gulped except for Naruto. "So meet me at training ground twenty-six in fifteen minutes." And she body-flickered away.

"Well," Kiba said nervously "we better hurry."  
-

Hinata panted heavily as she and Kiba skidded to a halt in front their sensei. Naruto was waiting for them having done the exact same thing as Kurenai. Kiba was next to her winded though not as much as herself. Naruto eyed them coldly looking up from a strange grey book that said 'The Advanced Principals to All Fuinjutsu'. He had an intimidating presence up close which sort of scared her. He didn't seem to be like any other genin and seemed to be hiding something. The eyepatch on his left eye also attested to this.

"Alright," Kurenai said "I'll be having Naruto assess you as the senior genin. I will be giving him a five minute headstart and you are to track him down and subdue him to the best of your ability. The time limit is until five o'clock. It is already two o'clock, so you have three hours."

"You'll have to come at me with the intent to kill." Naruto added. Hinata shifted uncomfortably and Kiba snorted.

"Oh yeah? I bet a can take you down without using any of my clan jutsu!"

"Kiba, don't ever underestimate your opponents." Kurenai lectured. She had a feeling it would be a very fatal mistake against Naruto.

"Fine, fine but I'm definitely not going back to the academy! Let's do this Akamaru!" A little bark in response.

"So, Naruto are you ready?" He nodded. "3, 2, 1, start!"

Naruto dashed off to the forest area leaving a trail of dust behind him. Kiba whistled. "That was fast." Hinata nodded. This was going to be hard. If he was that fast in hand-to-hand combat, there was no way she'd be able to even touch him. A few minutes passed.

"Kiba! Hinata! You both can start now start now." They nodded but didn't chase after Naruto.

"Okay!" Kiba turned to Hinata. "I'll pick up his scent and you can use your Byakugan to spot him."

"Hai!" she replied firmly. She definitely didn't want to go back to the academy. She ran through a few hand seals.

"Byakugan!" And her vision expanded while turning black and white except for the bright blue chakra circulating in Kiba and her sensei. Kiba and Akamaru had begun sniffing around the ground where Naruto had been standing. Then he stood up and grinned.

"I got his scent. Let's go!"

Kurenai followed her two genin in their search for the blond. She knew he would be dangerous ever since she the Hokage had called her into his office yesterday about Naruto.

xxxxx Flashback xxxxx

_"Hokage-sama? You wanted to see me?"_

_"Ah, yes Kurenai-san. You see... I'm going to be putting Uzumaki Naruto on your team tomorrow and I wanted to let you know so you won't get too much of a shock."_

_"The Uzumaki kid? The one who came back two years ago? That one?" The Sandaime nodded. "But he's not even a ninja!"_

_The Hokage sighed. "That's why I called you here." He pulled out a thick black file and handed it to Kurenai. She opened it and her mouth fell open._

_"You let a ten-year old become an ANBU?!"_

_"Konoha's military power has never been lower in any part of it's history except for now. A large part of the regular forces and ANBU were destroyed in both Tailed Beast attacks. Naruto already had skill level close to ANBU level by the time he arrived. We needed more manpower and he would be far to ineffective as a regular genin. And unfortunately most of the Council already agreed to this."_

_"So why now? Why are you placing him in the regular forces now?"_

_"It has come to my attention that the jinchuuriki of the Nanabi would be graduating. I want Naruto to help her as a jinchuuriki. If we wait any longer, she may not be able to handle any of its power if the seal weakens. Naruto has demonstrated to me a level of control of the Kyuubi and has stated it requires a good partnership and good deal of mental contact. The seal on Hinata prevents that. Naruto is also quite skilled in fuinjutsu and should be able to deal with any problems with the seal."_

_"I see. What about Naruto himself? Is there anything I should know about?"_

_"Yes... well, there was another reason. Naruto has specialized in assassination during his time in ANBU. I've been concerned about him ever since the first few missions. He's very reclusive and his home is the ANBU HQ. He's had almost no friends outside in the regular forces and prefers to take solo missions. He needs friends his age. Can you please help him with this?"_

_"Hai, I will."_

xxxxx End xxxxx

She promised that she would help him. Worse case scenario in her head was that he'd turn into Itachi if he continued on like that. It disgusted her that he'd been doing things that people twice his age have shook her head. No use in thinking what Naruto has been through. What was best was what she could do for him now and evaluate her team.

Hinata and Kiba were five-hundred meters from where Naruto had stopped. Hinata was scanning the area with her Byakugan when her brow furrowed in confusion.

"What is it Hinata?" Kiba asked.

"I-It's strange. There a-are parts o-of my sight thats b-been blocked. It's f-fuzzy a-around those areas."

That can't be. Kurenai knew nothing of anything that could block the vision the Byakugan. Naruto was indeed very skilled. But how? There's no way any twelve-year old could do this unless he was a prodigy.

"What?! I thought you could see everything! Oh well, let's go around them then maybe your vision will clear up."

"A-Alright. We should b-be careful. H-He may h-have set up traps a-around."

"Oh come on! What could possibly ha-" Hinata pulled Kiba down to the ground as log swung right over their heads. "Oh. Nevermind then. Thanks." he said.

The two dodged a few blunt shuriken and kunai traps and couple of swinging logs mixed in with smoke bombs, they stopped on a branch facing Naruto's back. He stood quietly in the small clearing surrounded by trees, reading his book.

"He's waiting for us." Kiba said. He turned to Hinata. "Why don't we form a plan?"  
-

Naruto stood there listening for the two genins' presence. Clever positioning as he couldn't smell them (a useful trick taught by Kakashi). But he trained all his senses well and could hear a faint amount of whispering high in trees behind him. Subconsciously, he touched his eyepatch. No need to use that. He went easy on the traps constantly reminding himself that they were genin and not to kill them as his shadow clones set them all. He was supposed to assess their fighting skills and tactics so he avoided the flash bombs and pepper bombs not wanting to destroy a few ace in the holes before the fighting started though he did use a special seal that disrupts dojutsu. Oh Kami, if the Hyuuga clan Elders found out, they'd be out for his blood, but he wanted to put out a little challenge to the Hyuuga girl. One shouldn't rely to much on one thing. Especially sensitive senses like the Inuzuka's nose which may or may not be permanently damaged with a homemade pepper bomb straight to the face.

The quiet whispering stopped suddenly. 'Oh, they're ready. Unfortunately for you guys I'm not going down with a fight.'

A few kunai whizzed through the air. Naruto easily sidestepped and spun around to meet a quick assault by Kiba who through several rapid punches and kicks. Naruto dodged them all. Kiba quickly realized that it was going nowhere and backed off.

"Is that all you've got?"

"Ha! Not a chance!" Akamaru bounded out next to Kiba. Kiba popped a pill in his mouth and tossed another to Akamaru.

"Right! Now it's time to get serious! **Ninja Art: Man-Beast Clone!"**

Akamaru disappeared in a puff of white smoke and reappeared an exact image of Kiba."Let's go Akamaru!

**Ninja Art Beast Mimicry: All-Fours jutsu!"** They both crouched down low. Their nails grew and and both became much more feral. Naruto could see small wisps of chakra leaking out. 'Impressive' he thought as he put away his book. A high amount of chakra had to be condensed together in order for it to be visible.

Kiba (well the one he thought was Kiba) leaped first throwing a vicious elbow to his head followed by a wild swipe from his left. Naruto threw out his first attack, a kick to Kiba's side, which launched him a few meters to his left. He could see that their speed had in increased drastically, but not enough to cause damage to him. 'A definite taijutsu specialist. He's got a lot of potential,' Naruto noted. Akamaru came up also to his left aiming another nasty downward strike. 'Heh, trying to get on my blind side. Nice'. Naruto ducked and brought up a chop to the back of Akamaru's head. Akamaru rolled forward to avoid the blow and landed in a four-legged crouch.

"Very good," said Naruto. "A fast, overwhelming, offensive taijutsu style. Wild too. But it certainly has its weaknesses. You lack defense and whenever you miss, you leave yourself open to counter attacks."

Kiba growled. He was right about his taijutsu style. It depended almost entirely on speed. Momentarily overwhelming the enemy and retreating just before he gets his act together. Hit and run tactics. But that wasn't part of the plan.

"Heh, then we'll just have to step it up a bit. Akamaru! **Fang Over Fang!"**

Kiba and Akamaru jumped into the air and twisted themselves into a speeding vortex heading straight for him. Naruto leaped and briefly noted the smashed ground where he had been standing. A powerful technique indeed. They turned and towards him again and Naruto twisted away. Before he could regain his footing, Kiba and Akamaru were speeding towards him again. Naruto jumped high into air.

"Now Hinata!"

Naruto turned his head to see Hinata leap at him with her hand outstretched towards him. And in an instant he saw their whole plan. It was very simple. Kiba, with the obvious advantage in speed, would attack him head on to create an opening for Hinata who hid in the trees waiting to strike. Though slower, her Gentle Fist would allow a quick finishing blow. Not bad. But unfortunately for them, Naruto almost always had a back-up plan. And that is why only his shadow clone was destroyed. Kiba and Hinata looked dumbfounded.

"B-But that w-was solid!" Hinata stuttered out.

"Of course it was"

They turned to see five clones standing high in the trees along with the original.

"It's called the Shadow Clone jutsu" And they leaped.

The ensuing fight was over quickly with them both pinned by the shadow clones to the ground. Naruto had decided not to hold back on the offense. Besides the time limit was already over.

"So sensei," Naruto started "How did they do?"

Kurenai released the genjutsu that helped her blend into a tree. She walked over to them.

"Though they failed in apprehending you, they displayed good tactics and the ability to work together, putting their strengths and weaknesses together in order to coordinate a well executed assault. So... you all pass!"

Kiba broke out a large grin, Hinata looked stunned and Naruto... well, his face didn't seem to change but Kurenai could've sworn she had seen a faint smile.

"We'll meet back here for our first mission at eight o'clock. Until then, you are dismissed. Congratulations Team Eight!"  
-

Alright, first full chapter done. Next we'll see a bit of interaction between the Kyuubi and Naruto and the relationship with his teammates. Until next time!


	3. Beginning of a Team

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Author's Note: Okay, here's chapter three. Thanks for the reviews! A little more on team dynamics. Naruto's relationship with the other character's are starting up and quite a bit more on his past and current personality. I'll try to start to go farther into details. As for Ryuujin96 question about the romance in this story... Hmmm, still trying to plan it out. It likely won't come until much farther into the story when their relationship is much more developed. I'm not quite sure how I'll write it out yet. I hope to put more into a sequel after the time skip though there'll be a bit of a twist. About Hinata's curse seal was mostly for her just being in the Branch and yes, would provide a degree of control over her as a jinchuuriki though there is no immediate danger as she's got two seals for the Nanabi. One an even number seal and the other an odd number which was stated to create an absolute barrier between the two.

_Italic: emphasis, flashbacks_

**Bold: dialogue for non-humans, activated jutsu**

'thought'

"speech  
-

Chapter 3  
Beginning of a Team

Naruto lay on his bunk back at the ANBU headquarters having a mental conversation with his fuzzy buddy. He first met the Kyuubi after a particular near-death experience on one gloomy night when it was on the anniversary on the Kyuubi attack. Normally the day was filled with mourning and most people stayed indoors. Naruto never liked going outside that day either. The looks from the villagers were even worse. He was just going back to his apartment after a quiet dinner at Ichiraku when something hard slugged him hard across the face.

xxxxx Flashback xxxxx

"What was that for, you bastard!" A little Naruto yelled. A tall man man with a chuunin vest stood over him with a bottle in his hand. He was obviously very drunk.

"Whaat shwas that for? Yoo sshould knoww damnned fox!" Naruto was confused what fox? "Yoor the one who crushed my little Aoi-chan and my wwife. I can't sstand hoow ruun around babbling aboot being Hokage! As if sameone like yoo who murdered my frieends and my famly could bee Hokage! I'd rather die." He stated the last sentence so calmly, Naruto gasped and backed away. This guy was deadly serious. His drunken ramblings weren't funny at all. Even if the villagers hated him, none actually hit before.

As far as Naruto could tell, he was in some serious shit. The man lashed his hand backhanding him across the face. Half-stunned, Naruto attempted to land a clumsy punch. Even though the ninja was definitely not close to sober at all, he easily caught the weak punch and using his other hand to smash his empty bottle over the child's head. Naruto fell heavily to the ground where the man continued his unrelenting assault.

A few minutes later, the Military Police arrived and subdued him. But not before the damage was done. All that remained in that alley was broken glass and a several patches of blood from that night.

xxxxx End xxxxx

Naruto sighed. The injuries he's sustained that night were not pretty. Both of his arms were broken, several ribs were nearly completely smashed, also resulting in a punctured lung, a severe concussion with a broken cheekbone and nose, and not to mention a bit of internal bleeding from one too many heavy shots to his gut. If it weren't for Kurama, he'd be dead. He had also appeared to him in a sort of dream while Naruto was unconscious. It wasn't much as only the gate and sewer appeared. Kurama's glowing red eyes were the only thing visible behind the bars. The image was brief before it had faded away.

**"Kit, you shouldn't be thinking about that."**

Naruto snapped back to attention in his mental mindscape. He had somehow managed to warp the dark, dank sewer away and replace it with the night sky and full moon partially covered by the occasional cloud. Though the big steel gate hadn't changed, a metal caged formed as the Kyuubi's jail and extended far into the darkness.

"I know. Bad memories are hard to forget though."

Kurama growled. **"Hn, well at least pay attention to the game."** Looking at the shogi board.

Naruto observed the new move. Crap.

"So... what do you think of my new team?" he said as he sacrificed his knight.

**"Weak. Though there's no question they've got the potential to go real far. Your sensei is a genjutsu user. Along with your teammates, who specialise in taijutsu and you, you make a formidable all-around team not to mention the tracking and reconnaissance abilities of your teammates. A very good combination."**

"You seem to like them."

**"Do you not, kit? All in all, you're a very good team."**

**"I normally work solo."**

Kurama sighed. **"You need to learn how to _rejoin_ humanity."** he snorted sarcastically. As Kurama saw it, Naruto's unwillingness to become close to people was longterm effect from that first beating from the drunk ninja. Naruto naturally distanced himself from people after that. Not as distrust, but as wariness. It was as if he was unsure if they planned to hurt him or befriend him. Or it could just be that he didn't want to risk losing something you couldn't ever hope to replace.

Not to mention that Naruto had wandered around the Elemental Countries for a year before coming to Konoha. He was used to being alone.

"I guess I'll get used to it." he said.

"Hn."  
-

Hinata stood nervously outside her grandfather's study. Hyuuga Hyoto was a strict and very unforgiving man. It was his decision along with the two other elders to name Hanabi heir and brand the curse seal on her forehead. She didn't exactly resent him for that as she was never one to hold grudges, unlike her cousin Neji. She sighed, but that only made her very uncomfortable in his presence. Hinata took a deep breath attempting to calm herself before knocking on the door.

"Come in." She flinched at the unmistakable stern tone before sliding the door open.

Hyoto sat behind his desk. His cold pale eyes bore into her. The long grey-white hair and many wrinkles said he was old. But he was certainly not feeble or frail. Hyuuga Hyoto was very formidable in the Gentle Fist having practiced his entire life and imposed a gruelling training regime on Hinata that 'the heir to the clan should be able to follow'. Because she could not keep up with it, she was automatically deemed a failure.

"So, Hinata. What have you come to talk to me about?"

"Hyoto-sama, I-I've come t-to inform y-you about the g-genin t-teams. Y-You t-told m-m-me to t-tell you h-how i-it w-went b-before I l-left." Hinata cursed herself as her stutter became noticeably worse. Another trait that deemed her weak.

"Well then, continue on." he said with a slight hint of interest in his tone.

"Me a-and m-my team h-have passed o-our g-genin t-test this a-afternoon. M-My s-sensei is Yuuhi K-Kurenai." Hyoto nodded at this. He didn't have any particular problem with her. "M-My teammates a-are Inuzuka Kiba," Hyoto mouth twisted into a slight scowl. That boy was wild, just like the rest of his clan. "And Uzumaki Naruto." Hyoto could not stop his eyes from widening in surprise. The ANBU Black Op on her team? Of course as part of the Konoha Council with the other clan heads and prominent civilians, he knew about Uzumaki Naruto's status as an ANBU. The thing about Naruto was that he was almost exactly Uchiha Itachi. The same ability to mask one's emotions with indifference and the fact that Naruto seemed to distance himself from the people around was just like Itachi had done to his clan before killing them all. And that made everyone uneasy, save for the Hokage. For Kami's sake, they

_both_ enrolled in the Black Ops when they were the same age!

"H-Hyoto-sama? Is s-something w-wrong?" He realized that he'd forgotten about Hinata in his half-panicked whirl of thoughts.

"Nothing. You may go to your room now." he replied in a carefully controlled voice. Hinata nodded and bowed before scampering off.

Hinata lay on her bed staring at the ceiling. She'd taken off her forehead protector and put it on her bedside table and began to nervously poke her fingers together. Another timid habit she needed to get rid of. Hinata did not miss the clan head's surprised expression which quicky morphed into a much more shocked look. If even Hyoto-sama could not hide his emotions, it must be very bad. She flashbacked to Naruto easily holding his own against Kiba's inhanced speed. Kiba was one the best of the graduates in taijutsu, second only to Sasuke the Uchiha prodigy himself. Yet Naruto hardly launched a single serious attack and the way he poofed into smoke when she hit him told her he definitely wasn't a genin.

Hinata didn't rest easy that night as there was one big question in her mind. Who is Uzumaki Naruto?  
-

Kiba happily munched on his dinner. It felt good to finally be a real ninja, not to mention they'd be taking their first mission tomorrow!

"Well, someone's in a good mood today."

"Shut up, sis! You're just upset that you don't get to tease me about going back to the academy!"

"What gave you that idea? I'm happy that my little brother is finally a full fledged ninja!" Inuzuka Hana retorted.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe that mildly annoyed look you had on earlier when I came back and still had my forehead protector around my head." Kiba teased.

"Oh please, I bet you just got an easy sensei!"

"She was impressed with our teamwork and our abilities! Besides, I had enough manlyness to pass anyway."

Hana choked on her water. "Manlyness?! I remember you screaming like a girl last week when I dropped that spider down your back." she snorted. That was very true. His voice rang an octave higher than what Hana thought was possible for a boy.

"Why you-" He stopped abruptly to the sound of cracking knuckles. His mother, Inuzuka Tsume, had a well known evil smirk on her face. One that promised plenty of pain and death. The two siblings knew this as the one big shining sign to sit down and shut up _or else_. The _or else_ part was part of the reason why their dad ran off.

"Heh, heh. Sorry mom." Kiba said. Tsume's evil smirk turned into a somewhat less evil smile. Her son was as lively as ever. Her only concern about her son's new team was the fact that the two jinchuuriki were on it. Of what she'd of Hyuuga Hinata, Tsume could easily summarise her as sweet, kind and gentle, though incredibly shy and reserved. There was no way she could be anywhere close to a monster. Naruto was a completely different story but she could hardly blame him. Though one statement from him made an deep impression upon her.

xxxxx Flashback xxxxx

It was a regular hectic council meeting. Ten seconds into the meeting, Inuzuka Tsume already had pounding headache. The fox masked ANBU just delivered his intel report concerning Otogakure's movement and large spike in it's ninja forces.

"We should've dealt with the threat of Orochimaru earlier."

"Can't we clear him out now before this problem gets any worse?"

"No, we don't even have enough shinobi who could go toe to toe with him. He's one of the Sannin for Kami's sake!"

"Then why don't we recall Jiraiya and Tsunade and form a strike team."

"That would take far too long with the little manpower we have now. Much less to launch an all-out assault against Otogakure."

"Then what about the jinchuuriki?"

Utter dead silence.

"Which jinchuuriki are talking about?" asked a scowling Hyuuga Hyoto.

Tsume noticed the ANBU stare curiously out from his mask with a single intense blue eye.

"The one created four years ago from the Nanabi's attack. What about her?"

"She is part of the Hyuuga. I will decide what will be done with her."

"A jinchuuriki is a vital addition to our forces. We simply no longer have the luxury to wait for the average genin to graduate and rise through the ranks and replenish the ANBU Black Ops and jonin."

Before anyone could reply, a voice cleared his throat and said "Hokage-sama, may I suggest something." The Hokage, having been silent the entire argument, nodded. Everyone turned to the fox masked ANBU.

"You need a jinchuuriki, right?" he asked quietly. A few nodded, others grimaced. Using jinchuuriki as weapons was a despicable thing to do despite the present situation calling for it.

"Make me your weapon." And he quietly clicked the mask off revealing the right side of his face. Several gasps erupted from many council members. 'It can't be Tsume thought as she recognized the familiar whisker marks from the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki face.

"The boy was brought back here in secret a month ago. It was classified as it would cause mass panic amongst the public." the Hokage explained before anyone recovered enough to speak.

"Hokage-sama-" started Nara Shikaku.

"He had volunteered before to act as a weapon for the good of the village. That is why he stands here today with that mask." Danzo spoke. Tsume grimaced. Danzo fully intergrated his Root division into the regular ANBU from the shortage of active shinobi. She disliked his extremist ways as he'd rather eliminate than negotiate. Nowadays he worked closely with the Hokage.

"I did not know there was another jinchuuriki." Naruto said.

"There was another Tailed Beast attack a year after you left, pup." piped up Tsume who was sitting the closest to him. He nodded slowly. Then he whispered ever so quietly that even her sensitive ears almost didn't pick it up.

"May she never become like me."

xxxxx End xxxxx

That one sentence bothered her to no end. Tsume thought long and hard about it. She came to the conclusion that it was the loss of innocence, childhood and perhaps his own self. It happened far too fast for one Uzumaki Naruto. And it would be a scary thing to see the exact same thing happen to her own children. 'Ah well, Kiba's got a few years before that stage. Hana doesn't actually spend a lot of time in the regular forces for much of that to happen.'  
-

Naruto arrived early at training ground twenty-six. He was itching to practice his ninjutsu with his shadow clones. The slow pace was making him restless. Right now he'd probably would've finished up another A-rank assassination, though. He sighed and pulled out a large blue book. This one was titled 'Formula Basics to Chakra and Blood Activated Seals'. Essentially it was about blood seals and seals that use chakra to activate their usage, however it was so complicated inside, the average shinobi would think it was written in a different language. A civilian would think it was gibberish. Naruto used to flunk some of the easiest jutsu when he first started training (_'cough'_, _'cough'_ Clone jutsu, _'cough'_) but seals came easy to him. His older cousin just said that it was because he was an Uzumaki like them. His aunt and uncle just said it was also because he was his father's son.

Yeah. He knew he was the son of the Yondaime Namikaze Minato and his wife Uzumaki Kushina. His mom's family didn't hold back on secrets partially because they were bad at keeping them and mostly because they knew they could backfire on them like one big defective explosive tag. Naruto, at the beginning, was wary of them as it was a surprising change to see someone smiling at him besides the Hokage. By telling the secrets, they gained his trust at a much faster it would've actually taken.

"G-Good morning, N-Naruto-san." Naruto looked up from his book and into Hinata's smiling face.

"Good morning to you to, Hinata-san." he replied in an even tone.

Hinata sat down on the grass across from where Naruto sat leaning against a tree. She fidgeted nervously with her fingers. The image of her grandfather's reaction still fresh in her mind. She wanted to know more about him, but she felt that it would be a rude thing to do considering his reserved personality.

"You know what Hinata," Naruto said suddenly as he snapped his book shut. "Why don't we spar for a bit? I didn't get to see your skills in the evaluation."

"Huh?" Hinata looked up startled.

"I just want to see what you can. We are teammates now, so we should get to know each others skills to work together better." Naruto reasoned. True they were teammates but Naruto really needed to evaluate her skills if was supposed to help train her. "A-Alright." she replied softly.

Hinata got up and nervously leaned back into her Gentle Fist stance. Gentle Fist was a special style the Hyuuga clan used. It utilized the Byakugan to its full potential by allowing the user to see the inner coils that carry chakra throughout the body though. With this, a Hyuuga could then target and attack them by funneling chakra into their opponents body and use it to damage the coils which also damaged the internal organs. The slightest touch from this style to the torso could be very dangerous.

"Well Hinata," Naruto slid into an unfamiliar taijutsu stance. "Don't hold back. Even with your Gentle Fist." Hinata wasn't sure about that but he seemed to insist.

Naruto beckoned for her to make the first move. Hinata lunged forward, aiming a palm strike to his shoulder. He parried it by pushing her wrist away and aimed a kick to her stomach. Unable to stop her momentum and twist away in time, she slammed into it and fell back onto the ground. Winded, she struggled to get back into her stance.

Hinata readied herself as Naruto went on the offense. He threw a multitude of lightning fast jabs, a few them landed through her guard as she desperately tried to avoid them. She tried to step only to find that Naruto had hooked her foot when he strategically placed his own foot behind hers when he shifted into his attacking stance. Hinata stumbled and would've fallen were it not for Naruto grabbing the collar of her jacket.

He pulled her back into her stance. Hinata looked down at the ground. She was pathetic, losing so easily twice now. Maybe she should just give up now and accept her fate as a failure just as Neji-nii-san says every time she loses a spar. Maybe she should just-.

A hand clamped down reassuringly on her shoulder. "Don't worry about it Hinata." Naruto said. "It doesn't matter where you are now. What depends is your will to get stronger. The weakest shinobi can become the strongest with hard work and dedication. I believe you can become one of those shinobi." Hinata gaped at him. Nobody said anything like that to her, ever. To her surprise, Naruto did something she never thought he'd do. He chuckled.

"I had to get used to praise too, Hinata. We're very similar you know." Then he twitched his nose. "Looks like Kiba is here."  
-

Kurenai had been quietly observing from a distance. She was worried when Naruto decided to spar with her but that vanished as she realized he held back quite a bit and could tell he was worried about hurting her. A smile broke out across her face. 'Looks like he's not as cold-blooded as I thought'.  
Unfortunately, he had reverted back to his usual stoic self standing outside the Hokage's office.

"Team Eight," a chuunin assistant said. "The Hokage is ready for you." Team Eight then stepped into the room. Sarutobi Hiruzen was mentally bracing himself for the new genin's reaction to taking D-rank missions. Some of the loud ones could be rather deafening.

"So," the Sandaime drawled. "Which D-rank mission would your team like, Kurenai-san? There's babysitting five six-year olds for four hours, weeding a client's garden and painting their fence or tracking down Tora again."

Now came the genin reactions: Naruto didn't react in any way as he already knew about this, which was good but Hiruzen could already see boredom creeping into his eye. Hinata looked... relieved? Kiba was confused, no doubt wondering why they were doing chores.

"Huh? Is that it?" he said.

"Well, you aren't all that experienced yet neither as skilled. How can you be expected to take high-level missions?" the Hokage stated innocently.

Kiba scowled. "I know, I know. But seriously, babysitting?! Who does that?!"

Kurenai smiled. "Little genin who don't know how to be quiet." Kiba facefaulted. This was going to be a _long_ day...  
-

Naruto was very irritated now. The babysitting was incredibly annoying. Kurenai had left to help out with something leaving them kids were constantly whining, fighting each other and not to mention pulling pranks on the ninja. Naruto having being a prankster himself managed to avoid most of them but his other teammates didn't have much luck. Hinata, having the less devastating of them, got only got a few buckets of water dumped on her. Kiba and Akamaru got the the worst of them. Akamaru somehow got stuck to a toy truck covered in whip cream. The kids somehow managed to make Kiba chase them around the house with several tripwire traps and lead him outside only for him to get splattered with mud.

Rule Number One on waging war with a prankster: Never let yourself get riled up, always plot your revenge carefully. Apparently Kiba did not have the patience to do so which led to his inevitable downfall. Naruto decided to read his fuinjutsu book while waiting for Kiba to calm down after taking a pie to the face. He reached for his pocket when he realized it was empty. 'Damn those kids!' He thought furiously and rushed to the bathroom. I wild guess, but his old prankster instincts told it had something to do with the toilet. As far as he knew, the pranks they pulled were pretty simple and easy to predict compared to hidden paintballs involving storage seals.

Naruto flew up the stairs and slammed open the door to the washroom just in time to catch his book inches from hitting the water. That book was _extremely_ valuable! Almost any complex fuinjutsu book was considering some of the knowledge in them!

"Awwww, so close!" Naruto glared at them trying to prevent his killing intent from leaking out. It was likely to only alert all the neighbours and incite everyone else into a riot. After working with Kurama and many high level assignments, it could be very potent.

"All of you upstairs now." Naruto said in the calmest voice he could muster. He looked out the window. Hinata was still trying calm Kiba down and figure out a way to separate Akamaru from the toy truck.

Naruto firmly shut the door to one of the bedrooms. The kids looked at him with disappointment in their eyes. That last one had definitely been the closest to getting him. He glared at them.

"So... do you know what _torture and interrogation_ means?" All shook their heads. 'Hn. Probably too advanced vocabulary' he mused.

"What it is..." He paused for effect. Then he grinned evilly, the first time in a while. "Is the ability to make your _worst_ fears come true." They all gaped at him. That wasn't necessarily true about torture and interrogation but it was part of it.

"You're a liar!" one of them cried out.

"I'm not lying. It is quite true and I'm very good at it." Not really but he knew how to inflict pain and extract information. He wasn't quite that good in mind games that made Morino Ibiki famous for. "All the monsters you fear in the dark and all the worst nightmares you could think of can become real in this room right now. If you take another step out of line, I will show you exactly what I mean." And he opted to look as intimidating as possible. Apparently he was as they shut their mouths and paled considerably.

"You may leave now." They quickly scurried out the door and they were like angels the rest of the day. Kiba was utterly dumbfounded. He almost begged for Naruto to tell him the secret to his success. Naruto simply told him that he didn't have the right personality for it to work. Kiba protested but Hinata secretly thought Naruto was right.  
-

The week went by slowly. Naruto visited Kakashi to see if he failed yet another team. To his surprise, Kakashi told that they actually passed if not barely. During training sessions with Team Eight, he showed Hinata a few things in taijutsu, helping in smoothing out her Gentle Fist and giving pointers in spars. She improved rapidly with his help. Kiba also sought out his tuition in correcting mistakes in his jutsu and improving his defence and speed. They got along well, despite the many differences in their personalities. Hinata and Kiba were very curious about Naruto's past. He never said anything about himself or his family.

As the D-rank missions droned on, Kiba became increasingly impatient until one day in the Hokage's office when he finally bursted.

"Come on! Enough of this bullshit! Can we have a real mission now?!"

"Don't get over your head Kiba! You've just become a genin!" said a chuunin with a scar across his face.

The Hokage sighed. "Iruka, why don't we just let their sensei decide"

Kurenai thought for a moment. They already had good teamwork together and were already much more skilled than some genin. Besides, maybe a slightly tougher mission could perhaps give a much needed boost of confidence to Hinata and despite Naruto's lack of emotional display, she could see he was restless and bored to tears.

"Hmmm... Why not just this once? They're actually quite good for rookies. It would be nice to get them to experience the outside world." Kiba beamed, Hinata looked nervous and Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"Alright then. Tazuna, you can come in now." The door opened and a somewhat drunk man stepped in. He had grey hair and a short beard. He wore a dark sleeveless shirt and a towel around his neck. A beer bottle in one hand and a pointed hat in the other. He looked at Team Eight with slight disdain.

"These brats are the ones guarding me?" he said with a bit of disappointment in his voice.

A vein popped on Kiba's head "We are not brats. We are ninja!" he said indignantly.

Tazuna was about to retort until he saw Naruto. His eyes widened.

"Hello, Tazuna-san." Naruto said calmly. Everyone looked towards him.

"You two know each other?" Kurenai questioned. "He's just someone I know. Nothing more nothing less." he stated bluntly.

The Hokage coughed. "Well now, I'll explain the mission. Tazuna-san here is building a bridge in the Land of the Waves and he wants a few bodyguards to help protect him while he does that. The mission will dure until he is done. This is a C-rank mission."

"U-Umm, who a-are we s-supposed to p-protect him a-against." a nervous voice asked. The Hokage chuckled. "Don't worry about it Hinata. Only the common bandit is likely to attack you and that's actually rather uncommon."

Naruto had been watching Tazuna carefully. He already suspected what the real mission was, knowing the problems of the Land of the Waves for quite a while. The bit of sweat that broke out across his brow as the Hokage said that just confirmed it. 'Oh dear. This is going to be a wild ride.' he thought. He could rat him out right now but he desperately needed to get out of the village. He wasn't used to so much peace and quiet and it made him really restless.

"You leave tomorrow at eight thirty." And the Hokage dismissed them. But Naruto stayed put.

"Hokage-sama," he said after his team and Tazuna left. "I wish to ask you something."

"And what is that Naruto?"

"I'd rather not say in front of Iruka-san." The Sandaime sighed and signaled over to Iruka for him to wait outside.

"So what is it Naruto."

He paused for a moment. "I wish to take an assassination mission for Gato of the Gato Company in the Land of the Waves."

-  
And end! That took a while. So the Land of the Waves arc is next. I'm hoping to update this weekly or so depending on events and homework. Next chapter I hope to show a lot more of Naruto's real skills.  
Wanted to show Danzo in the last scene to show more of his relationship with the Hokage but couldn't seem to fit it in.  
Couldn't find a good way to describe Naruto's five-year old flashback. I didn't want to go too far into the details.


	4. Journey to the Wave Country

Disclaimer: I own nothing, everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto

Author's note: So, first part of the Wave arc. This story will follow many canon events though I plan on changing them a bit. Between the Chuunin Exams arc, I plan to add in a few more scenes focused on character development. I added in some history with Naruto and the Wave Country to make it little different and have Naruto start to confront his past a bit.

_Italic: emphasis, flashbacks_

**Bold: dialogue for non-humans, activated jutsu**

'thought'

"speech  
-

Chapter 4

Journey to the Wave Country

Naruto arrived early at the village gates. He wore a plain green rain jacket and black pants with his usual armguards and shinguards. He leaned against the wall, his eye completely focused on his book. The sun had barely risen over the horizon. He thought about the Gato mission. First he'd have to track him down somewhere. Definitely tough when you've got to stay close to client and Naruto had _no_ intention about letting Tazuna die especially when he already failed Inari and Kaiza. Scowling, he buried his nose deeper into his book.

**"Kit,"** Kurama said in his mind.** "Do you really think you can take on Gato by yourself? That man is one of the richest in the world! He'd definitely has some tough missing-nin working for him. How do you think he managed stay off the Five Great Shinobi Nations' radar for so long?!"**

"No idea. Possibly he carried out some dirty work for them all, even for the Land of the Fire. As for getting rid of Gato, I've got a duty to fulfill. I'll find a way after all, no man is invincible."

"**It's your funeral, though I'll probably have to bail you out sooner or later." **And he went silent, ending the conversation. Figures.

Naruto touched his eyepatch. Hopefully he wouldn't have to reveal that anytime soon. The whole village would do more than just _flip_. It could probably escalate into full out mobs filled torches and sharp objects trying to hunt him down. Or best case scenario would be that everyone would be too confused to do anything.

Tazuna showed up fifteen minutes early from their scheduled time to leave. He wasn't very surprised to find Naruto already waiting. They didn't say a word until his two teammates and sensei showed.

"Well then," Naruto said. "Let's get going."  
-

The first hour of walking was uneventful, and a little dull. Hinata and Kiba chatted about their families and (in Kiba's case) their antics while Akamaru yipped happily. Naruto was on high alert, his senses picking up a multitude of sounds and scents. He could sense chakra on a far lesser degree to a sensor. Only within a hundred meters or so like most jonin. Chakra sensing required an open mind and concentration as well as plenty of training. Chakra was energy, spiritual and physical, being a ninja for a while can get you attuned to it be able to feel it somewhat nearby.

Kurenai went on to explain how the Land of the Waves had no shinobi when Hinata asked why Tazuna hired them. She then also explained the Hidden Village system in the Five Great Shinobi Nations. Naruto, already knowing that, decided to read one of his newer edition of the Bingo book. Every Shinobi Nation had their own edition of these. However the one in Naruto's hand was not a Konohagakure edition, but Otogakure's. It was a little something he picked up from a mission a while back. Sometimes it was useful to figure out your enemy's enemy, after all an enemy of my enemy is a friend.

Not wanting to advertise what he had in his hand (as it was issued to only jonin and ANBU), hid it by placing a minor genjutsu, changing it into a plain red book. He scanned through the info on each missing-nin, committing it to memory. Then he reached a interesting new page labeled Fox. Naruto looked at the page. Wait a minute. _What. The. Hell._ Did he just land himself in the Bingo book?!

Name: Unknown,

Alias: Fox

Affiliation: Konohagakure

Rank: High B-rank, ANBU

Age: Unknown (12-15)

Description: Spiky blonde hair, one blue or red eye, ANBU flak jacket, metal armguards and shinguards, steel-toed boots, fingerless plated-gloves, bandaged arms and a ninjato strapped to the waist. Wears a snarling kitsune mask with black paint, dark orange stripe across the mask. Under five feet tall.

Jutsu: Kenjutsu, at least two nature transformations, Shadow Clone jutsu, adept in fuinjutsu. Possible dojutsu in left eye.

Specialization: Assassination, espionage,

Bounty: 250 000 ryo

Wanted by: Otogakure, Iwagakure, Kumogakure

No picture

Damn that was a lot of information. Naruto thought back to all his missions. 'Well there could have been a few witnesses' he mused silently. The page was still incomplete as there were a few jutsus he rarely used in assassinations. He sighed out loud, wondering how to get rid of his infamy. Nevertheless, he was quite flattered to be an high B-rank shinobi at just twelve years old and worth a quarter million ryo.

Another hour went by before an out of the place puddle showed up by the road. Naruto instantly tensed, putting a hand gently on the hilt of his ninjato. Kurenai was also alerted as seen by her cautious gaze. Kiba and Hinata were oblivious to the danger and Tazuna didn't notice either. As they passed the bizarre puddle, two ninja with Kirigakure forehead protectors slowly emerged.

They launched their simultaneous spiked chain attack on the jonin. Before they could wrap it around her, Naruto whipped around and threw his sword nailing the chain to the ground. The two ninja gritted their teeth and released the chain connected to each other through the heavy gauntlets.

"Meizu! Get the bridge builder! I'll hold these two off!" one of them shouted.

"Kiba! Hinata! Protect Tazuna!" Kurenai ordered. The two had been standing still in shock but managed to overcome it enough to move in front of him in a protective formation. Kurenai turned to her attacker. The ninja launched a full assault using his gauntlet as his main weapon. Kurenai backed off and ran through a few hand seals.

**"Demonic Illusion: Tree Binding Death!"** She disappeared while tree appeared rapidly around him and coiled its roots around him, immobilizing the nin. Kurenai swiftly reappeared in the tree and smashed the butt-end of a kunai on his head, knocking him out.

Hinata froze in fear as Meizu tore straight towards them. Kiba panicked and threw a wild punch, only to be backhanded and thrown to the ground. Akamaru jumped up to him but was kicked to the ground. Meizu leaped towards her ready to bring his claw down on her. Hinata held her kunai and arms in front of her to block it. Suddenly Meizu yelled in pain and was yanked back. Naruto had stabbed him in the shoulder of his gloved hand and pulled him back with the embedded kunai.

"Are you all right, Hinata?" he asked. She nodded still trembling from the near-hit Naruto saved her from.

They all rounded up the ninja and placed next to a tree. Naruto slapped on a sealing tag on each of them after retrieving his sword he threw. Kurenai turned to Tazuna.

"You've got a lot of explaining to do." she said in a not so carefully controlled tone. "I want to know why low _B-class_ missing-nin are after you."

Naruto looked at the two missing-nin. The Demon Brothers, he guessed. Ironically, he just passed the page about them. Tazuna lowered his head and explained how Gato and his company came over a year ago and took control of the Land of the Waves. He monopolized the whole island by taking control over the oversea trade and ruined the Wave's economy which explained why he couldn't have the mission as an A or B-rank. Naruto wasn't interested in that since he already knew the whole story. He scanned the Bingo book for any clue to which missing-nin would come next. Whoever it was, it would most likely be one tough fight.

Tazuna then explained the bridge he was building would change all that. It would connect the Land of the Waves to the mainland and they would no longer have to depend on overseas trade, effectively eliminating Gato's hold over the country.

Kurenai sighed. "That just makes this at least an A-rank mission. My team won't be able to handle this."

"But we can't leave him alone! They'll kill him! I want to continue the mission!" Kiba argued.

Kurenai opened her mouth to object, but Tazuna spoke up. "He's right. I'm the master bridge builder. If I die, the bridge will never be finished."

She sighed yet again and turned to Hinata and Naruto. Hinata poked her two fingers together, a nervous habit. "I-I don't w-want to a-abandon Tazuna and t-the W-Wave Country n-needs our h-help. I-I want t-to s-stay." she stuttered. Kurenai then looked to Naruto who was still reading.

"Well, what about you?" she asked warily. Kurenai suspected Naruto knew more than what he let on.

"I'm staying too." he said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"...You've been holding out on information of the mission." Kurenai accused. Kiba and Hinata looked towards her in confusion.

"I have no idea about what you're talking about." he said smoothly.

"You _knew_ this was an A-rank from the start, didn't you?"

Naruto snapped his book shut. "Kurenai-sensei, it would be best to have this conversation just between us and away from others. Now lets just move on, _dattebayo._" And he started walking down the road.

Kurenai scowled. Withholding information on a mission could be a treasonous. She was sure Naruto knew that too, yet it was such a irresponsible act. Kurenai wanted to get him to talk about everything but she knew he wouldn't comply. She shouldn't let them continue this mission, but they seemed to want to continue even if she left them behind.  
-

The boat ride was quiet. Tazuna had someone take them across the chasm by boat. Hinata let her mind wander off. The confrontation between Naruto and Kurenai-sensei had been very tense. She had no idea how Naruto could've known about the mission before Tazuna could explain everything. 'Just one more mystery to him,' she thought. Right now he was reading another book, this time it was a light green one, thinner than his usual fuinjutsu books and had no title. Kurenai was brooding in a way that was almost like Sasuke, which was _very_ scary. And Kiba was napping with Akamaru curled on his chest.

There was a dense fog that covered everything but when they got closer to the Wave Country, a massive silhouette appeared next to them.

"I-Is that t-the bridge?" Hinata asked tentatively.

"Sure is. Quite a beauty, ain't it?" Tazuna responded.

They then passed through a long tunnel and emerged into bright and sunny area. The fisherman dropped them off at a nearby pier, stating that it was as far as he could take and left. The group walked down the path to Tazuna's village. Naruto remembered this path, there was a small lake ahead wasn't there? Memories stormed through his mind, water walking training, cooling off in a hot summer day, sparring with his cousins...

Naruto shook them off. 'Not now,' he reminded himself. There was a time and place for that, but he was on a mission. He couldn't afford to become distracted when a high-level enemy missing nin could be waiting nearby. Suddenly a rustling sound came came from a nearby bush. Naruto instinctively threw a kunai at it. However it just happened to be a rabbit with snow white fur. The kunai buried itself in the ground a centimeter from its foot.

Kiba laughed. "Looks like you tried to kill a cute bunny, Naruto!"

Hinata picked up the rabbit with a concerned look, making sure it was all right before putting it down on the ground. She turned to her sensei. Kurenai had a look of concern and slight panic.

"S-Sensei? I-Is s-something wrong?" she asked quietly.

Kurenai looked around for a moment before yelling "Duck!" She grabbed Hinata and Tazuna and pulled them to the ground. Kiba and Naruto both hit the ground as a huge cleaver-like sword flew over their heads and smacked into a tree in front of them. A man then jumped down on to the massive sword.

He had dark spiky hair and his forehead protector was on the side of his head. Bandages covered the bottom half of his face and had wrist-warmers that went past his elbows. He wore no shirt and only a belt-like harness around his torso and had a tall muscular build. He had striped baggy pants and leg-warmers in the same style as his wrist-warmers.

Kurenai stared at him. She was not expecting to see this man right here. Almost every jonin knew him as the Demon of the Hidden Mist. 'This is bad,' she thought.

"So... What brings you out here _Momochi Zabuza_?" Naruto unexpectedly piped up.

"How do you know who I am?"

"You're a well known shinobi. You're an A-rank missing-nin and a former member of the Seven Ninja Swordsman. You wield the Kubikiribocho and are an expert in Water-style techniques as well as the Silent Killing technique in conjunction with the Hidden Mist jutsu. You are the Demon of the Mist."

Zabuza chuckled. "I was informed that this was a genin team. You certainly are no ordinary genin. I don't know about your teammates, but you've made this job much harder than I expected."

Kurenai snapped out of her slight daze. This was Momochi Zabuza, she could not get distracted, especially when he can use the Silent Killing method. "Team Eight! Manji formation!" she shouted. "Do not leave this position unless I order it!"

They all took out a kunai and stood in a battle ready stance in front of Tazuna, each facing a different direction. Hinata activated her Byakugan. Kurenai stood in front of them raising her killing intent. Zabuza jumped down from the tree, sheathed his sword on his back and stood on the lake, also emitting his killing intent. Hinata and Kiba trembled from the amount emitted, whereas Naruto wasn't effected.

Hinata felt the pressure rise. She started to sweat and her breathing constricted. Her stomach jumbled around and she felt sick. She tried to close her eyes in an attempt to block out the bloodlust, but her efforts were in vain. Suddenly Naruto placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, like after their first spar.

"Don't worry about it. We'll make it out alive, I'm going to make sure of that." Hinata nodded calming down a little, as well as Kiba who was shaking uncontrollably.

Kurenai took out a kunai as well and stared intently at Zabuza. The fight was on.  
-

Zabuza had observed the team of genin. The Hyuuga kid and the Inuzuka kid had reacted exactly as he predicted. Konoha was too soft on them and they still shook a little in fear, despite the blond one reassuring them. They must be new graduates from that academy of theirs and have hardly been in a life-threatening situation. The blond kid with the eyepatch was not like them however. He gazed back at Zabuza liked a hardened veteran, concentrating on the enemy while being aware of his surroundings. The boy was probably younger than Haku but acted like another jonin.

Zabuza made a mental note to take him out fast after he dealt with the sensei. He activated his Hidden Mist jutsu and disappeared. Kurenai took a cautious step back. A fog moved in making it hard to see. Each passing second it got denser and denser so that even if Kurenai was just standing twelve meters ahead Team Eight could only see her silhouette.

"The Wave is surrounded by the ocean, so fog is very common but not as thick as this." Tazuna said.

"Eight vital points, larynx, spine, lungs, liver, jugular, subclavian artery, kidneys, heart. Now, which one?" His voice rang out around them.

And suddenly he appeared in the middle of the manji formation, the only weak spot. "Behind us!" Hinata cried out. Before he could swing his Kubikiribocho, Naruto pushed his teammates out of the way and stabbed his kunai into Zabuza's gut. Water burst out of him.

"A water clone!" Kurenai gasped.

'The sensei let down her guard,' Zabuza observed. He leaped forward behind her bringing the Kubikiribocho in a horizontal swipe across her, but her image faded. 'Genjutsu' he realized as tree roots grew on him, restraining him.

The water clone dispersed as Kurenai stabbed a kunai through its neck. 'Another one!' She turned and sidestepped in time to avoid getting cleaved in half. Zabuza turned and threw a kick. It passed through her. Genjutsu again. He quickly dogged a barrage of kunai and shuriken and leaped back on to the lake and began to form hand seals.

**"Water Style: Water Clone Jutsu!:"** Four water clones shot out. All of them disappeared into the mist.

Kurenai backed away from the lakeside edge. Water was definitely Zabuza's territory and she had no Earth-style jutsu in her arsenal to give her an advantage. The mist thickened leaving Kurenai out of sight of her team. She swore. This is bad, it was a very bad matchup. It was hard to target the original with his clones around him. Picking the wrong one could leave her open to an attack. She wasn't likely to get out of here alive, but maybe her team could.

"Run!" she shouted out, hoping they could hear her wherever they were. "I'll hold him off long enough for you to escape!"

"No way sensei! We won't abandon you!" Kiba's voice rang out, it was close by.

"Just go! You'll never be able to defeat him!"

"B-But Kurenai-s-sensei-" Hinata's stuttered.

"Now! Take Tazuna and go!"

"Kurenai-sensei," This time it was Naruto's calm voice. "Kakashi-sensei told me that people who break the rules are scum, but _those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum_. Besides, it isn't possible to escape after he's done with you. He'll catch up anyway." Kurenai gritted her teeth. Her genin were just way too stubborn!

Before she could reply, Hinata shouted. "Sensei, i-in front of y-you!".

She jumped backwards as the giant cleaver swung through the air. Then a second cleaver swung towards her head. She ducked in time to avoid it, and twisted around to throw a kunai at the water clone. It dispersed, leaving a large puddle behind. Kurenai turned again only to find the other water clone a puddle as well. Naruto stood behind it, sheathing his sword.

"I thought you'd need a bit of help." Kurenai nodded her thanks.

"Aren't you with the others?"

"Of course I am. I wouldn't leave them to defend themselves alone against him." Kurenai eyes widened. 'Of course! A shadow clone!' she realized. "I'll take on Zabuza now. You are obviously outmatched with his water clones everywhere. We eliminate the clones then give you a clear opening for your genjutsu." And the clone dispersed.  
-

Naruto knew when to begin when his clone's memories swarmed in his head. He didn't immediately attack, wanting to have Zabuza use up more of his chakra going on the offense. Of course things got a little too dangerous to sit around anymore. Now was the time to strike.

"Guys," he said. "I'm gonna go on the offense now. Watch Tazuna's back."

"What!? You're going to take him on!?" Kiba yelled rather dumbfounded. That guy was insane! If he could go toe to toe with his sensei, Naruto wouldn't have a chance. However, Naruto was different.

"Don't underestimate me, Kiba."

Naruto ran through a simple set of hand seals.

**"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough Jutsu!"**

A huge gust of wind shot out of his mouth, blowing away most of the mist. Zabuza still stood on the lake along with a few water clones by the lakeside.

"Interesting. Wind nature is rather rare, even rarer when a genin can perform it." Zabuza complemented. 'Heck, this gonna be a close fight. I wonder if I should have let Haku join in the beginning,' he thought.

Naruto threw up a t-shaped hand seal.

**"Shadow Clone jutsu!"**

Six identical copies popped into existence. Two stayed behind with the team while the original and the other four sped towards the lake. Hinata and Kiba gaped. The clones were solid! The normal Clone jutsu was simply an image, but these were actually him! 'Is this the jutsu he beat us with back at the forest?' Kiba wondered.

Each clone engaged one of the water clones. The original sprinted straight for Zabuza in the middle of the lake. The original Zabuza got into a defensive kenjutsu stance. The kid was fast! Zabuza tried to draw his Kubikiribocho in time, but kid drew his sword faster in a slash to his chest. He jumped back in time to avoid. The boy obviously knew his swordsmanship. The unsheathing of the sword in a strike was a basic move, but deadly nonetheless.

Zabuza countered but was dogged. Of course blocking his massive cleaver was last choice amongst almost everyone except for a few of his former colleagues in the Seven Ninja Swordsman. One of his water clones where already down, the surviving shadow clone went off to aid its brethren. Zabuza gritted his teeth, the tables had turned. He blocked another strike, the boy's style was familiar. Zabuza was sure he'd seen it before, but where?

'Concentrate' he reminded himself. The boy was not someone to take lightly. They both disengaged for a moment. Zabuza quickly threw up a few hand seals.

**"Water Style: Water Clone Jutsu!"**

Three more clones formed. Damn, he was getting low on chakra. He had to make the next jutsu count. Two of the blonde's clones had finished up the others and were coming to support him. Zabuza began to run through the many seals for the jutsu.

Naruto recognized a bit of the sequence that Zabuza went through. It was a powerful water jutsu. He finished of the water clones and took a few steps back. His own clones appeared by his side. Naruto didn't have to tell them what to do. Zabuza finished the last seal.

**"Water Style: Water Dragon jutsu!"**

Four large arcs of water erupted from the lake and swirled above his head. They collided in the air, forming a powerful vortex in the air. The end of the vortex formed the head of a fierce dragon. It roared and twisted high in sky before launching itself towards the blond.

One of Naruto's clones reached into the original's weapon pouch and brought out a small red storage scroll. He unsealed the first storage section and out popped a much bigger blue scroll. The other clone caught it and opened it to reveal a one complicated seal. The formula was spread out across the paper and in the middle of it had only a empty circle. The kanji for water was written once at the bottom and top, the gravity formula on the sides. The two clones spread it out in front of the original. Naruto had a fairly calm expression on his face. He went through five hand seals and placed it on the back of the complex seal and raised up as if to use it to shield himself from the oncoming dragon of water.

**"Sealing Arts: Water Release Jutsu Seal!"**

The dragon smashed into the scroll. It was immediately absorbed as the seal glowed. It sucked in every drop of water like a black hole. Zabuza's eyes widened. No one had ever been able to stop such a jutsu like that. However it had its toll. The blond was panting heavily as he stashed it away and his shadow clones immediately dispelled in a poof of smoke.

Zabuza stumbled, trying to stop himself keeling over in exhaustion. That last bit really got to him but he still had enough to pull out a few more weaker jutsu. He attempted to charge at the blond only to find that his feet were trapped. Tree roots grew over him and Kurenai appeared behind him.

"Nice job Naruto. Looks like this is the end for you, Zabuza." she said as she prepared to stab him through the neck.

Suddenly, two senbon shot through the air and pierced Zabuza's neck. He immediately froze up and went limb. Kurenai released her genjutsu and the Demon of the Mist fell forward and landed face down in the water. A boy dressed in a blue robe and long black hair tied back into a bun with long black bangs framing his appeared on a nearby tree. On his face was a slitted white mask of the hunter-nin of Kirigakure.

"You're right, it was the end for him." he said. His voice was that of a boy not much older than her genin team. By the lakeside, the others stared in shock. Zabuza was dead, just like that.

"Hunter-nin-san. I assume you are here for Zabuza." Kurenai said.

"Indeed. I've been tracking him for a while. Thanks to you that I've finally been able to kill him. He is a formidable missing-nin." The hunter-nin picked up Zabuza's body and they walked back to the shore.

"Hey! Who are you with the mask?" Kiba asked blatantly.

"He's a hunter-nin. They are a division within the Kirigakure ANBU that track down missing-nin and destroy their bodies so their secrets stay safe and hidden. It is dangerous to have a bloodline or special ability fall into enemy hands, that is why the hunter-nin exist." Kurenai replied.

"Oh. Well I've got a good nose for tracking. A hunter-nin would be a good choice to become after I'm good enough."

"The hunter-nin corps are an exclusive part of Kirigakure. Its only our ANBU that does stuff like that."

"Excuse me," the hunter-nin said, "But I must get going." And off he went zipping through the trees. 'Strange,' Kurenai thought. 'Aren't they supposed to immediately destroy the body?' Kurenai shook her head. 'Lets not worry about that now. We're all pretty exhausted, I don't think Naruto or I will be able to handle another fight so easily.'

Naruto panted as stumbled a bit. His seal really sucked up his chakra like always, but he got a handy jutsu in the end. Kiba came over and wrapped his arm around his shoulder, supporting him. He grinned at Naruto.

"Damn. That was awesome Naruto! You got to show me that sometime so I can kick some ass too!" Naruto gave a small tired smile. Kiba was alot like his old self. Hinata also smiled, relieved that nobody got seriously hurt.

"My village is nearby. It won't take long to get there." Tazuna said.

"Might as well get going then." Kurenai replied.

Chapter 4 is done! I was hoping to throw in Hinata and Kiba a little more into the fight, but it didn't seem to fit in quite as well. Next one or two chapters are definitely going to be peaceful up until the battle of the bridge. I added in Naruto's old verbal tic just to say he's still Naruto. I decided to throw in an original sealing jutsu. Its not very explored upon in the canon. So, 'til next time.

Sealing Arts: Water Release Jutsu: A-rank sealing technique. User must activate the seal through a few hand signs to function. The seal captures and absorb the water jutsu and stores for later use. The user can then reactivate the seal and use the stored jutsu later on. Cannot capture any other elemental jutsu.


	5. Tree Climbing and Discussions

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Author's note: So... Chapter 5. This one's peaceful and slow going with no fights and some background information to the story. Also a little shorter than the other ones, I think. Next one's going to be much more original to set up the different circumstances on the battle on the bridge. Thank you for all the reviews so far!

_Italic: emphasis, flashbacks_

**Bold: dialogue for non-humans, activated jutsu**

'thought'

"speech'

Chapter 5

Tree Climbing and Discussion

It was sunset by the time they got there. Naruto had a hard time picking his feet up. That kind of high-level sealing jutsu takes a lot of energy to use and he was completely smoked. Despite his spinning head, Naruto couldn't help thinking about doubting the hunter-nin. 'Senbon are normally used to incapacitate and have low killing potential. He should've used a kunai. Much messier but get's the job done.' Naruto almost froze. 'Does that mean Zabuza's alive? I know there are certain pressure points around the neck that could mimic death if actually hit right. So that means... Heh, the first aid medical training in ANBU is pretty useful.'

They stopped by the door. It flew open to reveal a dark haired woman around thirty somewhat. She hugged Tazuna.

"Father! You're back! And they sent some shinobi with you!"

"Yes, they did. Come and meet them, Tsunami." And he stepped back to reveal them.

"My name is Yuuhi Kurenai. I'm the jonin sensei for Team Eight." said a tall woman with wild black hair.

"M-My name is H-Hyuuga Hinata. I-I'm a genin." said the young girl with the almost white pupils.

"Name's Inuzuka Kiba and this is my partner, Akamaru. I'm also a genin." said a feral looking boy with a white puppy with brown ears on his head. The blond boy next to him had his head down so Tsunami couldn't see his face. Then he sighed and looked up.

"Uzumaki Naruto." Tsunami couldn't suppress her gasp of shock. "Naruto-kun! You came back!"

"What? Nii-san's back?" Came a voice behind her. A little boy appeared beside her. He had a large grey hat with two blue stripes around it on his head. He wore bluish green overalls and a yellow t-shirt.

"Naruto!" he shouted and hugged him. The rest of Team Eight looked at them with surprise.

"Nii-san, it's been three years since we've seen you! Where have you been?" Inari's tone did not contain any malice of any sort, which surprised Tsunami. She'd been expecting Inari to get all mad about him leaving the Wave Country.

"Sorry, I've been busy." Naruto said, patting Inari's head. "You've grown up a lot since I've seen you." Naruto also seemed to be expecting that as well.

Tsunami looked over to the still shocked Team Eight. "Why don't we all come in and have dinner? I'm almost done making it."  
-

Naruto headed to bed early right after eating his fill. No surprise since he wore himself out during the fight with Zabuza. Inari quieted down at dinner. He noticed Naruto's exhaustion and decided to ask questions tomorrow. Team Eight was very curious to find about Naruto's connection to the bridge builder's family.

"So," Kurenai's voice finally broke the silence. "How does Naruto know all of you guys?"

"Its a long story. He should actually tell you though. Naruto-kun used to live here a while back." Tazuna said.

"What?! But he's a _Leaf shinobi!_ Don't all shinobi come from their own villages?" Kiba said, startled. He was giving some of his dinner to Akamaru.

"Actually," Kurenai paused. "He really did live in Konohagakure." Kiba's eyes widened.

"But we never met him or probably even seen him in the academy or outside it!"

"Oh, he was really young when he did leave. I heard he got adopted to some people who lived outside the Hidden Leaf."

"W-Who did h-he get adopted by?" Hinata asked.

"Family relatives from his mother's side apparently. A real rowdy bunch but very friendly." Tazuna said.

"So what happened to them?" Kiba asked. The whole room went silent. _Very_ silent. Then Tsunami spoke.

"Only Naruto-kun can tell you that. It is not our place to speak freely of it."

All of Team Eight could tell it wasn't something good at all. The way everyone's faces fell said so. Inari then put down his fork and went up the stairs to his room. What happened to Naruto was also what happened to him. Thinking about that just brought up a loud, slightly stupid, always smiling Naruto and the loss of his father, Kaiza. He slid open his door to find Naruto sitting on the window sill.

"Naruto-nii? What are you doing in my room? Didn't you go to bed?" he said as he stepped inside.

Naruto looked out the window. "I... I just... want to apologize for not being here when they killed your dad. I should've been there to stop them and protect the Wave Country, my homeland, just as my clan had done for many years. I was weak for running away. And you payed the price. For that, I sorry I ran away."

"Naruto-nii, I'm not mad at you for running. You were just lost and you had to find your way back. I'm not blaming you for that." Inari said quietly. He understood Naruto's pain because he lost his father. He saw Naruto become lost and soon after, he felt the same way. He could never blame Naruto not being there after what happened.

Inari walked up and hugged him again. Naruto stiffened, then relaxed. It was comforting.

"Why did you come back if you're only going to die? Gato always wins." he said somberly.

Naruto returned the hug. "He only wins if he crushes your will. The bridge your grandfather's building will change that because it will bring back your will to fight and to oppose Gato. It'll show that the Wave Country still has its spirit and that Gato can't stop everyone. Besides, it has always been my duty to protect the Land of the Waves. No matter what."

"But-"

"Inari-kun, Gato's already defeated you. No enemy is defeated unless he's dead or has given up. Remember Kaiza-san once said to live your life with no regrets? Not fighting for your own freedom would be one of them."

"I guess... But I don't want you to die nii-san."

"Maybe so, but there are things worth dying for. I'd die first before letting others hurt my friends or sacrificing myself so others can live a peaceful life. That way you can be proud of me because my death was worth something. Your dad's death was worth something as well because he showed others to stand up to Gato, he showed you courage. Even though the others are crushed by his death, make it worth something by continuing what he did: standing up to Gato. Make sure he didn't die in vain, Inari."

Tears fell from Inari's eyes. Naruto was right. He would only be a coward if continued on like this. Being angry and sad about his father's death didn't help him. He should be proud instead. Kaiza stood up to Gato and showed everyone the Wave wasn't weak. Everyone was broken by his death and never truly understood it but Naruto said that the best way to deal with was to continue his will, what he believed in. And Kaiza believed in courage.  
-

"So," Kurenai began. Team Eight was standing in a small clearing in the nearby forest. Their sensei had decided to take the peaceful time to train. Naruto had informed her about his doubts about the hunter-nin early that morning. Turned out that she had her own doubts as well.

"Today we will be climbing trees."

Naruto almost rolled his eyes. It was such a misleading way to say it, but he decided not to do anything about it.

"Uhhh... Sensei, I've been doing that since I was like six." Kiba said. Akamaru yelped also.

"I meant climbing them without any hands." Hinata and Kiba looked slightly baffled.

"Here," Kurenai continued. "Let me explain. Tree climbing is a chakra control exercise and is a little advanced but once you get it, it will be easier to control your chakra."

"But sensei, why should we learn to control our chakra? I mean we can already use jutsu and stuff." Kiba said.

"It will be easier to utilise your jutsu without wasting chakra. Some much more advanced jutsu requires very precise chakra control or else it could blow up in your face." Kiba gulped at the 'blow up in your face' part. And believe it or not, that had happened to Naruto before.

"I'll demonstrate." Kurenai briefly made a ram seal and walked forward towards the tree. She placed her foot on the bark. It stuck and she continued her way up until she hung from a branch upside down. She tossed Kiba and Hinata a kunai each.

"Use the kunai to mark how high up you make it. Naruto you know this exercise, right?" He nodded. "Well then, you can go supervise Tazuna. Afterwards, I want to have a little talk with you." Her voice had a slight edge to it that clearly meant danger. Naruto body-flickered away not wanting to risk any rise in temper from his sensei.

Kiba looked to where Naruto stood a moment ago. 'Damn, wish I could do that.' he thought.  
-

Hinata panted in exhaustion. Her chakra kept fluctuating so much, she only made few meters of the ground before losing control and plummeting towards the ground. Kurenai had shown them to channel chakra towards the feet and maintain a steady balance and flow of chakra in order for the feet to stick to the surface. Hinata tried her best, but for some reason her chakra wouldn't listen to her.

Kurenai quietly observed her students from the side. Kiba was doing alright though Akamaru was beating him. Ninja dogs also had the ability to use chakra or they wouldn't be able to fight alongside their partner. Hinata was having a lot of trouble which was surprising considering the amount of chakra control used for the Gentle Fist style. But she was a jinchuuriki, maybe her seal was causing the problem. Perhaps she should let Jiraiya have a look. He was one of the best fuinjutsu specialists of the village, though what she'd seen of Naruto was good too. Hmmmm...

Hinata fell to her knees. She was so tired, she could hardly stand much less walk up a tree. Another one added to her list of failures. She should give up now and just minimize the damage. She was going to fail this too like everything else.

Kurenai sensed her student's distress. She quite liked the shy timid girl and could never see her as the monster many others saw. Her lack of self-confidence seemed to stem from her weaker skill in the Gentle Fist and the fact she was near the bottom of the academy's graduating class this year. Not to mention the constant disapproval from the Hyuuga clan. From what her file said was that she had very little skill in basic ninjutsu and genjutsu and her taijutsu was mediocre at best only due to her clan training regime. A few days before the examination, Kurenai decided to observe the potential new genin like many jonin senseis do. She had been surprised to be saddled a genin team so quickly after earning her jonin rank, so she decided to try her best to not muck it up. They were the future of Konoha after all.

She observed Kiba and his dog, Akamaru, first. He had poor scores on his academics, but was passable in all the basic shinobi skills. Like Hinata, his strength relied mostly on his taijutsu and was also skilled in his clan's techniques. He was skipping school that day with the Nara kid and Akimichi kid. Kurenai watched in amusement as he got chewed out by Iruka before turning her attention to the small Hyuuga at the back of the class.

Hinata was almost always alone. Nobody ever really sat next to her or payed attention to her either. At lunch, she sat away from the others and whenever she approached they would start to whisper and back off. When the child had difficulty on something, the instructors gave vague advice or answers that did nothing at all. It was no wonder why she got very low scores on almost everything. Still... She wasn't as bad as Shikamaru.

Kurenai had been half-expecting the Aburame kid, Shino, to join them on Team Eight due to his tracking and sensor abilities from his clan techniques. Along with the Byakugan and Kiba's nose, they would have made a very good reconnaissance team, but slightly weaker in terms of combat as they weren't exactly power houses. Adding Uzumaki Naruto instead had been rather... (as the Nara clan states) troublesome.

He was technically her superior, which was just awkward with him being younger than half of her age. He was very skilled and nowhere near genin level, though he did say his genjutsu skills were fairly basic. She was pratically flabbergasted to learn she would be having two jinchuuriki on her team. If something went wrong in almost any way possible, she could have a full blown shinobi war in no time at all. But as they were both jinchuuriki, they would have a better understanding of each other than anyone else. She was sure the Hokage knew about that and was one of the reasons he put them together on this team.

Hinata lost her grip on the tree once again. She started to fall when she realised that she just didn't have enough energy to turn and land safely. Kurenai quickly caught her in mid air and placed her safely on the ground. Kiba's feet hit the ground, hard. He too was panting while sweat dripped over his face. Kurenai could tell he could only go for less than an hour before collapsing with chakra exhaustion.

She made a time-out sign. "Kiba, how about we stop for the day? Hinata's got minor chakra exhaustion and you will have it to if you continue any longer." Kiba nodded and Akamaru yelped in response. Kurenai carried Hinata on her back as the girl hardly able to stand and walked back to the house.

Naruto's day was... slow. It would have been boring if he sat around and did nothing. Tazuna had a few workers quit and walk off while Naruto had his shadow clones helping out. It was hard work by carrying the heavy materials to the parts of the bridge. Fortunately being a ninja helped with this.

"A lot has changed after you left Naruto. After Kaiza died, everyone just lost hope, lost their courage, their spirit. Nobody thinks we can win anymore against Gato." Tazuna lamented as they walked through town after the long day. He had promised his daughter that he would pick up a few things for dinner that night.

Everywhere there were starving homeless children and the many people looking for work. Sometimes the occasional gang would come around to steal and threaten a few people. Naruto cracked quite a few heads with the real nasty ones, but plenty of them were just kids trying to survive. The houses around the street were run down and some shops were boarded up and abandoned ever since going out of business.

Naruto and Tazuna turned into a small grocery store. There was hardly any actual food around. A few shriveled up carrots, several scrawny turnips, a couple of dried mushrooms and more measly vegetables were displayed on the shelves. Tazuna did his best to pick out the best amongst them despite the little selection.

While he expected it to be this way, Naruto was disgusted at how Gato had robbed his people of almost everything. Now he just had to find him and kill him and this would all end. Naruto was sure of the starvation the people of the Wave were facing. So he packed some extra food for the trip. At the counter, he pulled out one off his sealing scrolls as the store owner looked curiously at him. Without a word, he activated one of the symbols and out popped a box filled with preserved food. Naruto unsealed a few more and stacked them on the counter.

"For the people of the Wave." he simply said and the store owner stared at him in wonder as he walked out the door with an equally stunned bridge builder.

The two arrived back at the house to find Kurenai waiting outside. Naruto gestured to Tazuna that he would handle it while Tazuna went inside to help his daughter with dinner. Kurenai had a very intense glare that meant lots of lecturing and absolutely no nonsense stuff.

"We need to talk..."  
-

They stopped in the nearby forest, some place where they were unlikely to be overheard. Naruto had an uncomfortable feeling that his sensei was going to ask some very difficult-to-answer questions or the ones that he could definitely not answer. She turned towards him.

"So... Let's start off by why you held back on the information on this mission."

"My first reason, though selfish, is that I found a perfect opportunity to do my duty as this country's protector. As a regular shinobi, such a thing would normally require the Hokage's permission and I am doubtful that he would have let me go so easily. However this mission has given the opening to do so. I've already asked to kill Gato and have recieved the go-ahead from the Hokage. If I had revealed everything from the beginning, you simply would have refused the mission and it is likely Tazuna would have been turned away for not only not being able to provide the necessary funds, but for lying about the mission rank."

"Secondly, this would have allowed us to take the mission instead of a squad of chuunin who would most likely been massacred by Zabuza despite having two genin instead."

"Finally, though this was a dangerous gamble, was to have Kiba and Hinata actually have a choice in such a matter. They must truly understand the stakes of being a shinobi themselves. Learning this lesson early on is invaluable to the experience of a shinobi and everyone one of us must learn that anyone can drop dead in a moment. If they make it through this mission, they will benefit from the experience. Besides, they cannot be coddled and sheltered until they actually become chuunin or being a genin for a year or two. Although this is to keep them safe, they need to handle the outside world themselves one day."

"But they should've been better trained before letting on this mission!" Kurenai countered.

"It was only the timing of the mission. That factor was out of my hands." Naruto said bluntly.

She pinched her nose. Although his reasons were fairly acceptable given the circumstances, two green genin should not be on this mission. Kurenai counted silently to ten before changing the topic.

"Now, I want to know of how you are familiar with the Land of the Waves and why it's your duty to protect it."

Naruto paused for a moment. It was one of those very difficult-to-answer ones. His life's story was a very touchy thing to him and he simply didn't want to freak everyone out with what happened. And he didn't want sympathy to it all, since that just made it more unbearable.

"I... was adopted by... the people who lived here." he started carefully. "They... taught me many things. However, one day they all... died. And so I left... to get away from the pain. It has been one of my greatest... regrets. The people that... adopted me were... strong and protected this land. Because I am one of them... it is my duty to do so. I met Tazuna and his family when... I was small. He... was building a bridge where... we lived and... Inari was with him that day. I met him and we became good friends."

Kurenai could tell his background was definitely a sore spot for him through all the pauses and hesitations. She decided not to push for details and focus on what happened afterwards.

"So... tell me about what happened when you left and how you came to the Konohagakure."

"I simply traveled around the continent and nations. Leaf shinobi found me and brought me back there. I entered in the ANBU and carried out A-rank and B-rank missions." No details, but this time it was starting to get really fustrating.

"I suppose you can't tell me about it."

"No. That kind of information is for my former peers and Hokage-sama."

Kurenai sighed. Despite all her misgivings about him, she was really worried about what his past had done to him. His apethetic attitude was so similar to Kakashi's when his father took his own life.

"When do you plan to tell Hinata about her status as a jinchuuriki? She'll have to know sooner or later."

"Very soon. Perhaps during the mission or afterwards. The sooner she knows the better and the faster I can fix the seal."

"Ah, I was going to ask you about that since Hinata's been having a lot of problems with her chakra control. I was wondering if it had anything to do with the seal."

"Hmmmm... I actually haven't ever seen the design of Hinata's seal, but Hokage-sama stated that it was a double seal. The original was far too weak to contain it properly so a second seal was placed on top. That's what is probably causing your problem as it's directly interfering with her chakra flow. Once she's ready, I'll have to fully replace the seal."

"I see. But, what about your seal? How does yours work?"

"It's very complex. It allows a portion of the Tailed Beast's chakra to mingle with my own, however. Unfortunately I cannot modify my own to my liking as a seal this powerful requires a key."

"Key?"

"Some seals have keys to them in order to strengthen or weaken the seal or to even change it completely. It is normally on a scroll with the full sealing formula and is activated by chakra. Whoever has the key, controls the seal."

"Does Hinata's seal have a key then?"

"I don't think so. Apparently the sealing process was quick and somewhat sloppy since it was in the middle of the Nanabi's attack. Most high level seals can require hours of constantly expending and molding chakra. Hokage-sama already told they only sealed most of it, around two thirds of the original. The rest was sealed away to who knows where."

Kurenai tried to sort out this new revelation. 'So Hinata's seal may or may not be completely secured. Why the hell did I just get handed a_ time bomb_!?' She looked back at Naruto. 'I can see why he was added specifically on this team for that very time bomb.'

"I can sort out this whole seal mess, you know." Naruto continued. "However, it will be very dangerous as I will have to actually replace the whole seal, without disrupting the Nanabi. Worst case scenario is that Hinata may not be able to handle the change. She may be exposed to large amounts of its chakra and could reject it or die under its strain. This is the Nanabi's chakra we're talking that will be circulating through her system. The Hyuuga clan did an abysmal job on this. Normally a seal powerful enough to properly contain a Tailed Beast would naturally leak out its own chakra with varying amounts to A) release stress on the seal and B) to have the jinchuuriki adapt to its chakra. Infants and toddlers, no older than perhaps four years old, are often chosen because of reason B). They have a better ability to adapt. Hinata was six when this happened and now twelve without B). If any part of the seal is tampered with, Hinata will almost immediately lose control and the Nanabi released."

'Great. Its a _bigger_ time bomb than I thought,' Kurenai said to herself in her head.

"So the only good way to solve this mess is to fix it anyway, right?" she asked.

"Yes, indeed. Leave this problem any longer, it will be certainly irreversible. If the reinforcing seal breaks in the near future, which could be very likely, Hinata will surely die." he finished the last statement with a cold tone. Kurenai then realized that _somehow_ Konoha managed do pretty much dig its own grave over _one_ screwed up seal. 'This wouldn't have happened if the Yondaime Hokage was still around,' she mused sadly.

"Thank you, Naruto for telling me this. No more depressing talk for now. I bet Tsunami would have finished making dinner, so let's head back." He nodded and together they quietly walked back to the house.  
-

Dinner was quiet once again. Tsunami had prepared some vegetable soup, that Tazuna complimented on, with some rice. Kiba dug in so fast that he was a little green by the end of the third serving. Hinata ate slower and much more graceful than Kiba though Naruto could tell she was famished. There was a calm and loose feeling in the air, until Kiba made a sensitive remark.

"Hey, who's that guy in the photo?" he said pointing at the tall tanned man with a white string tied around his head. He was rather muscular, had dark spiky hair and a small 'x' shaped scar on his chin. In the picture, he was ruffling a grinning younger Inari's hair.

Inari flinched, but stayed at the table to Tazuna and Tsunami's surprise who had expected him to run off like he normally did when someone brought up his father. Naruto reassured him by placing his hand on his shoulder and whispered something to him while silence descended across the table. A few tears dripped out of Tazuna's eyes, Tsunami covered her mouth while her own tears threatened to fall. Inari looked down and Naruto simply closed his eye. Seeing the reaction amongst everyone, Hinata attempted to reprimand Kiba.

"Ummm... Kiba, I t-think that w-was a bad q-question you asked..."

Tazuna took off his glasses to wipe away his tears and sighed. He looked at Inari, who nodded, signalling that it was alright to tell them.

"That man in the picture is Inari's father, Kaiza, though they weren't related by blood. They were very close nevertheless and did everything together. How they met was one day..."

And end. I'm sure that almost all of you know the story about Kaiza, so retelling it would probably be a bit boring. Lot of stuff on Hinata's seal. I thought it would be much different since the only very good seal masters were pretty much gone at that time. One more thing is that if anyone has any good ideas for the preliminary matches and finals will be welcome through reviews. I going to change things around during that part.


	6. The Hunt for Gato

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Author's note: Alright, so chapter 6. A little dull in my opinion, but I don't exactly want to skip these things. I decided to wright part of it in Naruto's point of view, finding it more appropriate for the situation. I think I'll be doing in later chapters too. Hinata will finally know about being a jinchuuriki and I plan to elaborate on her feelings of this revelation in later chapters. One very important thing is that is there anyone who wants Sasuke to defect or stay? He'll be making an appearance soon and I want to determine his personality fast, though I'd rather not show him as, a bastard or in an extreme way. If he does defect, he will like he is in the canon.

_Italic: emphasis, flashbacks,misc._****

Bold: dialogue for non-humans, activated jutsu

'thought'****

"speech"

_Chapter 6_  
_The Hunt for Gato_

_It hurt so much. Uncle Kitoshi lay in a pool of his own blood now, only seen through the blurriness of Naruto's left eye. He refocused on his captor. Hate, despair, pain flooded his mind and body._

_"Did you not understand what we asked for? Maybe this will show you." The man raised the red molten iron poker. It glowed with a dangerous aura. Naruto shook his head. He promised, he always keeps his promises. He would never go back on his word, that was the way he swore how he would live his life as shinobi._

_A scream escaped his lips as the man pushed the poker back into his eye. The Kyuubi's healing was slow and the damage started to become irreversible after the third time._

_"Go easy on him, Toshiro. He's a jinchuuriki, we could fetch a nice price selling to one of the Shinobi Nations." another man said._

_"It doesn't matter if he losses an eye."_

_"We'll have to lower the price if he's that damaged."_

_"Well what about those Uzumaki sealing techniques? Riches won't matter if we've got power."_

_"Whatever, if we have both then we would be unstoppable."_

_"Hn." The newcomer stared at the blondy. He still wasn't breaking. Impressive fortitude from a nine year old, but then again all the Uzumaki were extremely stubborn._

_"You know what? Take one of the others and kill him slowly in front of the brat again. He'll crack sooner or later." And with that, he walked away. The other man grinned. It was cruel and full of malice._

_"You bet. Hey, Kenta! Take out the four year old redhead!" he said as he started heating up a second iron poker._

xxxxx Naruto xxxxx

I bolted upright immediately. All the blood was shown so vividly, but this dream wasn't uncommon. No, I always dreamed of this stuff ever since _that_ happened. I ran a hand through my hair, it was coated completely in sweat. I couldn't take it anymore, it needed to get out of here. Stumbling a little clumsily through the darkened hallway, I managed to slip on my shoes and step out into the starry night sky.

I walked to the nearby forest and sat in the small group of trees where Kiba and Hinata were practicing. I sat on the soft grass and began my meditation exercises. They seemed to help during my restless nights and keep my peace of mind. It was all quiet until I heard a soft patter of footsteps.

"N-Naruto-kun? W-What are you doing out h-here?" Hinata said softly. I looked up to her face. Her voice had a surprisingly calming feeling towards me. She had such a gentle heart that few in the shinobi world ever possess. I am glad they never took her to be a weapon and I don't regret filling that position of my own accord.

"I could not sleep tonight, Hinata-san." I respond the calmest way I could. To be honest, I never will get used to those dreams and on the worst of days, they become reality when the past and present mix in my head even when I'm conscious.

"I b-brought a blanket f-for you, N-Naruto-kun. I-Its cold outside." And she draped a blue blanket over my shoulders. She sat down across from me cross-legged. She had a light pinkish blush over her face.

"Thank you." I whisper quietly. "Why are you out here Hinata-san?" I say a little louder.

"Oh, I could n-not sleep very well and t-then I heard you w-walking through the hallways. S-So... I guess I f-followed you out. You l-looked very distracted." Hinata replied looking down at her twiddling fingers. I nodded and together we sat in silence for a few minutes, none of us sure of what to say next. Then I knew.

"Hinata, did you follow me because I looked lonely?" Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out and she stared at the ground again.

I gently place my finger under her chin and lift it up. Surprise was evident on her face. "You did, didn't you?" She looked away this time.

"Its alright," I say. "You can see my loneliness, because you are too. There's nothing to be ashamed about." Her eyes glanced downward then back to my face. An improvement.

"How... How d-do you know I'm l-lonely?"

"Because, I'm just like you." I said and Hinata's eyes light up in confusion. I remember the Sandaime's words and I have been given permission to tell her about the Nanabi if I deem her ready. In my eyes, she was already prepared for the truth and deserved to have known a long time ago.

"What d-do you m-mean by that?" This time I looked away, then upwards, trying to gather my words. Then I face her again.

"You wish to know why everyone glares at you, why they all seem to hate you. I have the answer, but it is your choice if you wish to hear it and act upon it." I say with a hint of sadness in my voice. She started to poke her fingers together in anxiety. Hinata seemed to understand that this secret would certainly change her life and everyone around her.

She paused, then said "Yes, I do want to know."

I cleared my throat and began. "Do you know about the attack of the Nanabi six years ago? Do you know how they defeated it?"

"I-I remember that t-the clan heads and my f-father fought t-together along w-with the Sandaime. There w-was a huge battle a-and they m-managed to d-defeat it. I-I was mostly u-unconcious during that t-time. F-Father d-died along w-with m-many o-others." she stuttered out.

I nodded and asked "Do you know what is a _jinchuuriki_, Hinata?" She shook her head. Definite no.

"Well, you see..." I take a deep breath. "The word itself means the power of human sacrifice. It refers to people who contain a Tailed Beast. A Tailed Beast is a being made up of a huge mass of chakra. They normally take a form of a large animal that represents themselves. There are nine of them altogether scattered across the Shinobi Nations. _The Ichibi, the Niibi, the Sanbi, the Yonbi, the Gobi, the Rokubi, the Nanabi, the Hachibi and finally the Kyuubi_."

She nodded once again, looking very nervous while taking in all the information. So she suspects something. I wasn't quite sure if academy students were actually taught such things considering the secret status of myself and Hinata.

"As for jinchuuriki, they contain one of them by a kind of jutsu known as a seal. They can wield massive amounts of power if they come to a partnership with their Beast." I left out the part about most of them being weapons as well, it was too soon for that. I continued.

"There are currently two jinchuuriki of Konohagakure." I hesitated between letting her know that I was one. A voice boomed inside my head.

**"Just let her know, it'll save you plenty of trouble later on."**

"I know, but I'm worried about..." I say in my head, switching into a mental conversation.

**"She won't become like you. She doesn't have to know about being a weapon. You're not doing that stuff anymore anyway for now."** I go silent in my head, until a soft voice pulls me back to reality.

"N-Naruto-san? Y-You were s-saying?" A hint of fear crept into her voice. I focus on her again.

"What I am about to reveal is a closely guarded secret, perhaps S-rank, that is punishible by death if revealed by anyone not authorized or have permission of the Hokage to do so. The identities of the two jinchuuriki." She caught her breath.

"I am the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi. You, Hyuuga Hinata, are the jinchuuriki of the Nanabi." I finally manage to say. Hinata's eyes widden, she gasps and after a long moment, she begins to cry. She finally found the reason to why everyone hates her, but it hurts a lot.

"B-But h-how a-and w-why? D-Does t-this m-mean I-I'm a-a m-monster l-like t-the a-adults s-say?" I instantly scowled.

"I don't know. Someday you'll find out. Someday." I then grasped her hands tightly. "I promise you that you're not a monster. The Nanabi and you are two different beings, each your own selves. Don't let anyone think otherwise for who you are, don't let anyone put you down for who you are and don't ever let anyone control you for you are!" Hinata looked at me in surprise to the rise in voice from myself. I then pull out a kunai and slit open my right palm and grasp her right hand.

"As your fellow jinchuuriki, I promise that you will no longer be alone. You are someone important to me and you're just like me, dattebayo." Her mouth opened slightly in shock and from the fierceness of what I said, a light blush spread across her face. More tears fell from her pale eyes.

"Thank you." she whispered.

-

I awoke to the sound of light footsteps. 'I guess I had dozed off,' I think. Sitting up quietly, I see a person with long shiny black hair and dark brown eyes, wearing a pink kimono. 'A girl?' I think as she had very pretty face. Next to me, Hinata starts to stir. 'We must have fallen asleep last night.'

"What are you doing out here, you two?" She ask kindly in an oddly serene voice. Hinata opens her eyes and sits up immediately at the newcomer's voice. Her face turns a bit red after remembering that she fell asleep outside here with me. Its not that we were very physically close to each other.

"A-Ano, we were j-just talking h-here last night." Hinata says. "What a-are y-you doing h-here, miss?"

She smiles, raises a small basket filled with scented plants and says "I'm out here to pick herbs so that my precious person can get better. Do you two have a precious person? Someone you care for very much?" We nodded, Hinata blushing a little once again considering last night's promise. It had been a while since I made a promise like that.

The girl looked at us and her smile grew wider. "I can see. Would you like to help me?" We all introduced our selves and I knelt down at a patch of herbs nearby. Picking a few of them, I stared. 'Onee-san use to pick these...'

Hinata struck a conversation with Haku, as she introduced herself. Discretly, I carefully sniffed her scent. It smelled like fresh air on a cold mountain, something that reminded me of snow and ice. Wait a minute. I sniffed again. A_ boy's_ scent!?

"Ah! I-I forgot!" Hinata sort of shouted with her soft voice. "I-I have to m-meet up with s-sensei for t-training."

"Training?" the now boy, Haku asked. "You're a ninja then. I thought so when I saw your headbands."

"H-Hai, I want t-to become s-stronger s-so no one w-will have t-to look d-down on me a-anymore." she said solemnly.

"A noble goal indeed. You know, a person becomes truly strong when they have someone to protect." he said.

"Huh? T-They do?"

He chuckled. "You'll figure it out one day. I think have enough herbs for now. Thank you, Hinata, Naruto." Only a nod from my head acknowledges his thanks.

"By the way, I'm a boy. Just letting you know in case you thought otherwise." Hinata's jaw fell open and I could feel my eyebrow rise an inch despite this not being a surprise. Go figure.

I turn to Hinata. "I've got some things to do. See you around, Hinata-chan." And before she can respond, I body-flicker away. Finally a lead, time to get started.

xxxxx

Hinata stared at where Naruto was standing a moment ago. He was so different last night, more open, closer. She tried to sort out the classified information that Naruto had told her. Her? A jinchuuriki? Able to wield massive amounts of power? No way, not a chance, _absolutely_ impossible. But it made all the more sense with how everyone shunned her, well mostly adults. She heard a few names like abomination, monster, demon etc. It always hurt and she never knew why. Until now...

'Does Kurenai-sensei know? What about Kiba-kun?' she thought desolately.

"Hey! Hinata! There you are!" She jumped at the familiar loud voice. Kiba came up to a stop next to Hinata, Akamaru panting by his side.

"Where've you been? Sensei was worried so I went looking for you. Where is Naruto? He was missing too." he said in a rush.

"O-Oh. Ummm, N-Naruto and I-I were t-talking o-outside over her l-last n-night. W-We met a girl- I m-mean boy w-who was p-picking herbs for s-someone and we t-talked for a while. I-I'm sorry, w-we forgot a-and N-Naruto l-left soon a-after saying he h-had stuff to d-do." Hinata stuttered as she looked down in an apologie.

"Huh? You two were out here _alone_ last night?" Hinata's face lit up bright red. Kiba laughed so hard, he fell over and rolled around. Akamaru barked and yipped next to him, his lips curled into a sort of smile. She swore that he was laughing almost as hard as Kiba.

"K-Kiba!"

"I'm just joking! Man, that was one hilarious reaction from you! You didn't think I was talking about _that_ kind of stuff, did ya?" Her face started to go for a much more deeper red. Hinata's brain started to feel woozy from such thoughts and she would've surely fainted were it not for the timely arrival of Kurenai.

"Kiba, you are distressing her, take it easy on the jokes. Hinata, where have you been? We decided to go looking for you and Naruto when you two didn't show up for breakfast." She said with concern.

"A-Ah, sorry K-Kurenai-sensei. W-We went o-outside to talk a-about some stuff." Hinata mumbled. Kurenai raised an eyebrow at 'some stuff'. Naruto definitely talked to her about that, didn't he? She'd have to talk about that later with Hinata without a rise in suspicion from Kiba.

"Oh well, let's get back to climbing trees where we left off earlier."

xxxxx Naruto xxxxx

The hunt was on. I was no idiot. I could tell something was off about Haku, the familiarity I felt with the hunter-nin that appeared at the lake with Zabuza was undeniable. Haku was definitely that hunter-nin and the herbs he was gathering were meant for relieving pain and muscle tension. Side effects for entering a near-death state.

I tailed him silently and avoided any detection. A hint of my presence would immediately put him on alert and I would fail at any chance of finding Gato. My clone should have delivered my message to Kurenai-sensei by now. She already knew about my mission, but she sure was going to flip when I get back.

My attention turned back to his scent I was tracking Haku by. It was midway there I noticed a slight amount of Zabuza's scent on him, indicating that Haku has worked with Zabuza for quite a bit. This could be a rather large problem as I had no desire to square off _two_ possible A-rank ninja as well as dealing with Gato's regular guards. Luckily they were no more than thugs ranging mostly to C-rank missing-nin to the occasional B-rank.

I've got to thank the ANBU that was keeping tabs on Gato back at HQ. But... _Who was it again?_ Oh, nevermind.

We both traveled deeper into the wild. The undergrowth became almost too thick to travel through so we took the trees. Haku's outline was faint in my line of vision. However I could see he was a very quick and agile person just from his movements. Brute force was definitely not his forté, but it wasn't mine either. Haku raced along the branches almost forcing me to release my chakra amplified weights I use for training. They're just simply light steel braces a wear around my wrists and ankles. They have a seal on them that allows me to store chakra within them and in return, they increase in weight. A handy tool for an extra boost of chakra and speed and agility training. Right now they each weigh around fifty pounds each.

A few hours later, the forest opened up into a huge clearing with large hive-like wooden building supported by the nearby trees. It had multiple levels and many platforms between those levels. By now, it was close to dusk, giving the background a dark feeling around the building.

'Gato's got something of a fancy yet simple taste. No doubt he's probably got an extravagant mansion elsewhere though.'

I jumped onto a higher branch, scanning the whole building. It was loaded with guards, with about forty strong missing-nin and mercenaries. Thankfully as the report said, only a few B-rank and C-rank missing-nin, the rest are only the basic outlaws, bandits, thieves and the occasional samurai. Unfortunately Zabuza and the boy, Haku were mixed in with them. Out of all of Gato's forces, they were the most dangerous, easily.

Transforming into the average mercenary, I approched the building. I was now a tall twenty year old with short messy brown hair and an angular face like my dad's. I kept my armguards and shinguards visible while opting for some leather shoulder guards. My sword was now strapped to my back and I wore a simple beige vest, a dark t-shirt underneath with worn green pants.

A missing-nin, one of the B-ranks, dropped down in front of me.

"You there! What are you doing trespassing on private property?" he said.

"I'm simply looking for employment. I heard Gato would be the kind of man to hire me for my unique skill set."

"So... You're another mercenary aren't ya?" the missing-nin scowled. "Gato is actually away on business. You'll have to wait if you want employment." I bit back a very colourful curse and the need to face palm myself. Just my godforsaken luck.

"When will he be back then?"

"In a couple of days. Only urgent business affairs. Now scurry off to your little town and come back another day." And he started to turn and walk off.

"Wait!" I call out. The missing-nin turns, only to make eye contact with my left eye. "My home is far, and I assure you that I'm not a waste of time like those other mercenaries. Let me stay here until he returns. I'm sure he has some important business here." I continue in a suggestive tone. His eyes glaze over slightly.

"Sure, whatever. It wouldn't hurt for you to stay awhile. Gato's always looking for people with talent like yours." he replied in a neutral tone. I nodded and we entered the base.

xxxxx

Kurenai silently fumed at the letter in her hands. Naruto's clone had arrived an hour after her students started to climb trees. The clone simply handed her the letter and left to guard Tazuna.

_Boss,_

_I have started my assignment. The one earlier from what my buddy said is an associate of the Misty One. I hope to strike a deal with our Business Man and hopefully get those two off our tails and avoid another cutthroat meeting. This may take awhile._

_Your Subordinate_

_PS: The messenger is meant to stay for a few days. Don't worry about him._

She sighed. Naruto had handed her his mission scroll discretly after their little run in with the Demon Brothers. Kurenai was shocked a the assassination order directly from the Hokage and Danzo. She already heard about Gato be an extremely rich man and that the Gato Transport was actually a cover up for his huge criminal empire. A man already that influential was a very dangerous potential threat to Konoha, so she understood Naruto's mission, but was almost disgusted by the fact that a twelve year old would carry out this mission.

Observing her other students, she noted that they had improved significantly. Kiba was close to about a thirty meters up along with Akamaru. Hinata trailed by not that much despite her rocky chakra control. After they were done, she was going to start them on water walking. They were mastering tree climbing much faster than the average genin. 'Jeez, the Hokage and Iruka weren't joking when they said this year's graduates were good,' Kurenai mused.

She wondered about the Naruto that gave her the scroll. He was definitely a shadow clone but how was it able to stay for _three to four days_? 'Probably one of his seals' she guessed. Kurenai had secretly watched Naruto put together incredibly complex seals when he arrived early for training sessions. If her suspicions where correct, he would've used a Chakra Transfer Seal, a low A-ranked seal, on the clone to sustain it.

A specialization in fuuinjutsu was _very_ rare. Jiraiya of the Sannin was probably the most adept in it but even he had hardly scratched the surface of the full potential of what fuuinjutsu could do. It was perhaps one of the most _dangerous_ and the _oldest_ of the Shinobi Arts, predating modern ninjutsu. It included alchemic formulas, mindblowing calculations and sometimes ritualistic application. It needed intense chakra control and a clear mind in order to execute. Those who learn fuuinjutsu are mostly jonin and ANBU and sometimes the basics for chuunin. The Hokage was certainly adept in this area, he was not called the Professor for nothing, as well as the Sannin.

Now for a twelve year old to master fuuinjutsu to such a degree was nothing short of a prodigy. Naruto was surely a genius in this expertise that might've surpassed the Yondaime's skill at the same age, which boggled Kurenai's mind. His last name was vaguely familiar and the only hint towards Naruto's origins besides his status as a jinchuuriki and orphan as far as she knew. A cry jolted her back to reality.

"Yeah! Woo hoo! We did Akamaru! We finally did it!" Kiba shouted in joy. Right now he stood upside down on one off the higher branches, Akamaru was next to him. Hinata smiled in congratulations as well as Kurenai.

"That's great Kiba, but how about walking down the tree instead of jumping down?" Kurenai shouted to him. "That'll make sure you can master it perfectly."

Kiba grinned in response, but then he suddenly lost grip.

_"NANI!?"_

Before Kurenai could react, Hinata lept from her and on to Kiba's. Placing herself beside the trajectory of Kiba's fall, she managed to snag his hood and keep her grip on the tree. She skidded down the tree a little from the sudden extra weight. Kurenai sighed to herself in relief.

Meanwhile, Kiba facefaulted as Hinata held a steady grip on his hood.

"Damn, I got saved by a girl. I'm so uncool..." he said as anime tears flooded down his face. Hinata giggled and Kurenai smirked. At least she didn't have to teach Kiba a lesson on humility. He regained his footing next to pale eyed girl as Akamaru landed on a nearby branch.

"Heh, uh thanks Hinata... Ummm please disregard what I just said..." Hinata's giggling turned into fullblown laughter and Kiba smiled sheepishly. Kurenai couldn't help but join in. Akamaru barked as well.

Secretly, Naruto's clone watched from a distance, wishing he could laugh along too.

xxxxx Naruto xxxxx

I sat back at Gato's base, brooding just like a _certain_ Uchiha. Gato's absence had just complicated things and what I had seen of Zabuza and Haku, they would be ready in a couple of days. I already sent another message to Kurenai-sensei, but I have no idea what to do now other than observe. Observing them a few times in the distance, I noted that Haku was very knowledgeable of the human body, basically the medical ninja of the two. Zabuza was making a swift recovery, starting with some more strenuous exercises the stronger he got.

'Speed and strength, agility and brute force, brains and brawn, those two are a tough pair.' I note as I sat down in the mess hall a few tables away from them a day after I arrived. 'If I want to get to Gato... Well I actually can't predict their loyalty to him. What do they want? Perhaps if I find what they want and give it to them, maybe they will leave us alone.'

"Zabuza-sama, do you really think Gato will give us the amount of money promised?" Haku asked, shaking myself from my thoughts. I strain my ears to hear more from my distance and over the general noise around me.

"We don't really have someone who's willing to pay this much for our cause. People who could pay this much would be daimyos and Kages." Cause? I was confused until I remembered the exact reason why Zabuza became a missing-nin.

'That's right. He tried to organise a coup-d'état on the Sandaime Mizukage. He failed and fled Kirigakure while the Seven Ninja Swordsmen began splinter and fall apart.' I recall.

I go about the rest of my day, disguised, observing all of the men under Gato's command. I also observe the architecture and structural weaknesses to the building, attempting to find anything I can exploite.

The men ignore as I leave them alone. They go about brawling, drinking, gambling whilst I sit away in a corner, watching quietly. Zabuza and his protegé don't join in either. The more I observe, the more I can see that they are no more than thugs that have no qualms in killing and torturing innocents for their own sick pleasure.

I simply will have no qualms killing them either, given the chance.

I've refrained from reading my fuuinjutsu books as it would give away my affiliation as a ninja. Even under a simple genjutsu, I worry that the missing-nin will possibly see through it anyway. Frustrating, but I cannot compromise my identity for such a thing.

Over the next couple of days, I place detonation seals across weak structural points with a master detonater hidden at a safe distance away from the compound. Detonation seals are normally used in explosive tags, made easier to use. Applying the original form on other objects was much harder as the detonation seal was actually a B-rank seal by itself. Easy to modify and very versatile for a fuuinjutsu specialist as well as easier to control.

Basically, the base will selfdestruct on my command.

Every passing day, the tension grows in my gut as Gato does not return and Zabuza grows stronger. I hear talk about Gato hiring some more plain mercenaries only and many of Gato's men here are not pleased about more compitition.

The third day was most interesting. I found a way into Gato's private office without being noticed and found a nice full safe filled with money. Picking the lock, I scoop all of it into a medium sized brown pack and store it into one of my storage seals. Hopefully the money would come in handy for dealing with Zabuza's little contract with Tazuna.

Unfortunately by the fourth day, Gato still doesn't show up and Zabuza and Haku are gone.

xxxxx

By this time, Team Eight rose early for bodyguard duty for Tazuna on the bridge. However, after completing their tree climbing exercises, Kiba and Hinata were joining in this time with Kurenai. The clone Naruto left waited patiently for his teammates. Then a slight tingling sensation came around and he knew that he was here.

-

So how was that? I think the Wave arc will last for two more chapters with an interlude and then Chuunin Exams. Hope you don't mind.


	7. Battle for the Bridge

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Author's note: Ack! Sorry for the longer than usual update! Some writer's block and tight schedule and wow, 2 weeks and 2 days to update. This chaper includes the whole fight on the bridge as well as the encounter with Gato. I'm hoping to write a few peaceful chapters before going into the Chuunin Exams, so please be patient if you really want to see the next arc. Any suggestions for the next peaceful chapters are welcome! Enjoy!

_Italic: emphasis, flashbacks, misc.__****_

Bold: dialogue for non-humans, activated jutsu

'thought'

"speech"

Chapter 7  
Battle for the Bridge

'Oh, shit!' was all Naruto could think of at the moment. He hadn't left too late after he noticed Zabuza and Haku where gone. If anything, he didn't want to a Kakashi on this. He had released his weights, but they were both travelling pretty fast as well, not to mention a half an hour headstart.

Naruto concentrated chakra to his clone by the seal on his hand. The Chakra Transfer Seal was a useful seal, able to give chakra to another being by distance. It was another very difficult seal to create despite its appearance looking decievingly simple. Through one seal, you would send the chakra, through another, you would recieve it. A piece of cake, no? Apparently not because it involved quite a bit of space-time ninjutsu.

He sped over the branches, hoping to get there in time.

-

It started on an ordinary day. Well, supposedly ordinary day to begin with. The clone went along the daily guarding of Tazuna except for the fact that his teammates were coming with him today after completely mastering the tree climbing exercise.

Then suddenly he stumbled and gasped as a huge power boost came from a seal tattooed across his back from the original. It didn't hurt, but it felt constricting and overwhelming at the same time. Then a flurry of memories flooded his mind, via another shadow clone.

'Zabuza and Haku are on their way,' he grimaced in his head.

Kurenai had stopped beside him in concern while Hinata and Kiba went ahead. She was about to reach for his shoulder when he spun around and grabbed. As she opened her mouth, he shook his head and gestured to be silent. Then he signed to her.

_Danger close by. Guard the target._

Kurenai frowned, then realized Zabuza was likely coming. Good thing that she warned the other two earlier about the possibility of his survival, so it wouldn't be that big of a surprise.

_Where's the original Naruto right now?_ She signed back

_On his way._ The clone responded.

Team Eight arrived at the construction site early, before the work hours started. It was quiet and peaceful with the fresh morning air surrounding them. Tazuna began to look over the blueprints for the bridge, making slight changes and adjustments as he reviewed the progress of the bridge. Hinata and Kiba started a taijutsu sparring match to warm up while Naruto watched silently. Kurenai simply paced around, alert for danger.

Then it started. A thick fog started to form around them, rising smoothly from sea level.

"Well, well, well. You guys again. I wondered if you had scurried back to your village. This isn't a job for children to handle. Kids like you have no right to be called shinobi. What a joke..." Zabuza's voice sneered at them as he walked out of the forming mist. At his side, a familiar hunter-nin stood next to him.

"You!" Kiba exclaimed. Kurenai eyed the hunter-nin warily.

"So... You did work with Zabuza. Seems like our suspicions were correct." The hunter-nin gazed back steadily at Team Eight.

"Give us the bridge builder, and we'll let you leave here alive." he said in a commanding voice.

"N-No!" Hinata stuttered out unexpectedly. "We g-gave him our word t-that we would p-protect him! W-We won't abandon him!" She noticed dimly that her stuttering actually decreased a little in those few sentences.

"That's right! We won't let you guys kill him!" Kiba shouted out.

Naruto had been sitting quietly where he had been ever since Hinata and Kiba started their warm-up spar. He observed his teammates actions and he smirked inwardly. 'So naive, but determined. I hope that will never have to change...'

"I guess my teammates are dead set on taking on a jonin and his protegé." he said as he got up and stood next to his sensei. "I'm gonna have to make sure they don't kill themselves in the process."

Naruto took off his dark green jacket he'd been wearing ever since they started the mission. Underneath, he wore a very plain grey vest with a dark blue t-shirt he used with his ANBU uniform. Bandages covered his arms under his armguards and right shoulder, hiding his ANBU tattoo and many seals on his forearms. On his both of his sides were five kunai in sheaths, making them easy to reach. Each of them had a different seal tag wrapped around the handle.

He pulled back some of the bandages covering a storage seal on his right arm. The seal activated and a second ninjato popped out. Naruto caught it expertly in his left hand while pulling out the one sheathed by his side.

As he slid into a well praticed kenjutsu stance, his teammates formed a defensive setup around around Tazuna. Zabuza eyed him cautiously. A dual wielder is rare and very hard to deal with. From his experience, he knew of one that actually beat with only kenjutsu. That man was not part of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen. In fact, that ninja didn't even _belong_ to a village, but gained fame as a master kenjutsu specialist.

He growled. He hated dual wielders ever since then.

"Take the two genin over there by Tazuna. I'll handle the other two."

Haku nodded and raised his senbon. Zabuza smirked slightly under his mask. He was his reliable weapon after all...

-

Naruto, the original, raced along the high branches until he stumbled out through the edge of the edge of the forest. He hoped that Kakashi's_ awful_ tardiness hadn't rubbed off of him. Leaping onto a tiled roof, he scanned the area for the enemy. Nothing. He headed towards Tazuna's home to check up on his team, since his clone hadn't dispelled.

Pausing nearby, he attempted to get a reading on the nearby chakra signatures. Damn, his team had gone to the bridge after all. However, he decided to check up on Tsunami and Inari. One of the biggest by-the-book tricks for shinobi was to take a hostage. Anyone with a close connection were in the most danger. No doubt that Tazuna's family would be in danger.

Naruto ran through the yard and stopped just by the smashed door. Tsunami was kneeling in the hallway, sobbing. He immediately panicked.

"What happened!?" Tsunami looked up to see a disheveled Naruto standing by the doorway.

"Naruto! Thugs came by to take me away, but Inari tried to stand up against them! They took him instead!" she cried.

"Did you see where they went?"

"No, but it looked like they were going towards the docks. Please, you have to stop them!"

Naruto reassured her that he would find Inari. Stepping back outside, he sniffed a few times. He quickly picked up his scent and made a mad dash towards the shoreline. He was nowhere near as good as an Inuzuka or Kakashi, but the scent was very fresh. They couldn't have taken him more than a few minutes ago.

He took to the rooftops again, avoiding whatever traffic on the streets. As he leaped on to the fishery, he saw them. They both had katana's on them, indicating them as possible samurai. One was smaller and wore a grey jacket and a dark purple hat on his head. He was sneering at Inari while his partner held him against a post. The other one was shirtless with a tall muscular frame, intricate tattoo covering his whole left arm and a black eyepatch over his right eye along with a small scar over his left eye.

"Well squirt, looks this is the end for you. You're gonna be the key to bringing them all down." the shorter one said.

"Like hell I'd let you!" Inari yelled back at them. He struggled harder against the man holding him.

"Knock him out, Zori. It'll be easier to carry him." the taller one said.

"Sure, Waraji." Zori took a step before hearing a sharp click of metal by his neck.

"Take another step, and I'll slit your throat." A cold voice intoned. He saw a blond boy with three whisker-like marks on each cheek out of the corner of his eye. Zori narrowed his eyes. Who the hell did this kid think he was? He sneered as he gripped his sword and prepared to draw it.

In a blink of an eye, a kick lashed out catching him hard on his ribs before he could draw his sword. He could hear a few nasty cracks as he was lifted off his feet and was launched into the air and landed several meters away with a large splash in the sea. Waraji attempted to backhand him with his left. Naruto quickly countered by ducking his head slightly while throwing a punch to the back of the guy's head. Waraji let go of Inari and stumbled forwards only to be smashed in the face by Naruto's left kick. He fell into the water with an unceremonious splash. Naruto turned to Inari with concern who was rubbing his sore throat.

"Alright, Inari-kun?" Naruto said as he knelt next to him. Inari nodded and stood shakily. Naruto gave a small smile and ruffled his head. "Proud of you Inari, I'm proud of you. You stood up to Gato's thugs to protect your mother. Proves you aren't a coward anymore. I don't have to look out for you anymore now you know how to be strong." Inari smiled back. He was growing up fast. No more crying, no more whining, no more having to rely on others anymore. He had _courage,_ the very thing his father taught him long ago.

It would be different now.

"I've got to go Inari. Don't try to come to the bridge however." Naruto said as if reading his mind. Inari opened his mouth to protest but Naruto held up his hand. "It would be best not to go. Ninja business. Sorry." And he sprinted off.

"Be safe nii-san." Inari murmured.

-

Back on the bridge, the battle raged on. Naruto and Kurenai watched Zabuza, preparing to counter him if he made a move against Tazuna while Kiba and Hinata took on Haku. Tazuna stood off to the side, away from the fighting knowing there was no way that he'd survive if he got too close. The thick mist had surrounded them completely. No doubt it was Zabuza's Hidden Mist jutsu.

Hinata activated her Byakugan, but to her surprise, she found that the mist had strands of chakra within them, slightly distorting her sight. Luckily, it wasn't much, so her Byakugan wasn't completely useless, just blurry the farther she tried to see. She focused on her opponent, the hunter-nin. He was oddly familiar, Hinata was sure she'd seen him somewhere else besides the time at the lake.

The hunter-nin started off by throwing his trademark senbon at them. Kiba dove to the right with Akamaru while Hinata jumped to the left. Kiba rolled into a low crouch with a seal formed in his hands.

**"Ninja Art: Man Beast Clone!"**

Akamaru lept into the air and immediately transformed into a mirror image of Kiba. They both charged at the hunter-nin, engaging in hand to hand combat. The hunter-nin pulled out a senbon and Kiba pulled out a kunai to counter it. They clashed, pausing against each other while Akamaru went behind to land a punch. The hunter-nin dodged nimbly and caught Akamaru's wrist. Using his momentum, the hunter-nin swung him into Kiba. They landed in a heap while Hinata attempted to kick him. Kiba quickly rolled to his feet with Akamaru and formed another seal.

**"Ninja Art Beast Mimicry: All-Fours jutsu!"**

The hunter-nin caught Hinata's wrist, effectively stopping her Gentle Fist strike. He turned to where the Inuzuka and his dog were and went through a few single-handed seals. Hinata gasped and Kiba's eyes widened.

"_Single-handed seals_!? But that's impossible!" he shouted.

"Ha! No, it's not if you got a _kekkei genkai_." Zabuza responded. He was still staring down Kurenai and Naruto. Kekkei genkai were special traits in a single clan and were unique to them only because kekkei genkai were passed down by blood. So only those who shared the same blood could use it. The Byakugan and Sharingan were examples.

**"Secret Jutsu: A Thousand Needles of Death!"**

Ice formed in the air, condensing themselves into a large senbon shape and sped towards Kiba and Akamaru. With their now enhanced speed, they jumped away from it and land a sharp hit to his gut. The hunter-nin tumbled several feet away. Zabuza growled.

"Haku, stop being soft and finish it!"

Hinata gasped. "You're the b-boy we m-met in the w-woods!"

"Huh? What? You've met him before?!" Kiba said, baffled.

"When m-me and N-Naruto-san were out l-late that night. H-He came b-by to pick herbs w-where we were."

The hunter-nin, Haku, stood up. "Hai, Zabuza-sama."

**"Secret Jutsu: Crystal Ice Mirrors!"**

Water appeared as he formed a unique seal, quickly solidifying into ice and creating thin rectangular mirrors surrounding the two genin and the dog. Haku slipped inside one of them, as if he was simply touching water. Hinata, Akamaru and Kiba stood back to back in the middle of the dome and Haku's image appeared in each of the mirrors. He began to launch a barrage of senbon from every direction at them. Naruto took a step forward towards the ice dome, but Zabuza stepped in front of him.

"That fight is between them only. If you want to interfere, only your sensei will be there to protect the bridge builder."

Naruto paused. His sensei was good, but she had almost no way to counter his water clones and could easily overwhelm her. He'd be the only one to back her up and his shadow clones were able to hold off any water clones.

Zabuza laughed. "Looks like you can't help your teammates without getting the bridge builder killed. To bad. Your friends have no chance of surviving Haku. I've trained in the art of killing since he was a child. He has faced many skilled opponents, outnumbered too while defeating them all. He's my tool to use against you. Even if they made it out somehow, they would never be able to defeat him simply because he's a killer, and they are not." Haku's needle barrage had stopped momentarily, letting them catch a brief rest from the oncoming attacks and to listen to Zabuza's speech.

"Konoha is far too soft, they should've made their first kill by now. In Kirigakure, the graduation exam was that you'd kill your own classmates. It was a battle to survive. Your best friend, the one you shared your dreams, hopes, fears, everything with, would be you're enemy. You or him, the winner gets to live and carry on, loser dies. It was a system designed to eliminate emotion and create the perfect killing machine. A shinobi. That's what we truly are, tools to our village to carry out their will."

Hinata trembled from the horror of Zabuza's words. Kill your own classmates? _Unthinkable_. 'Oh Kami, Kiba and I were in the same graduating class. I don't know what I would've done if I had to actually kill him or Sakura or Ino or Choji, Shikamaru or anyone else!' she thought in a haze of shock. Kiba was similarily shocked while Akamaru whimpered beside him. Kurenai's brow furrowed in distaste and disgust. Naruto didn't react in any way except for closing his eye as if accepting the entire barbaric way of such things. This did not escape Zabuza's attention.

He turned towards him. "You seem very calm about whole idea about killing your comrades. I can tell you've taken lives before, the experience shows in your eye. Your left eye is gone, no? That kind of injury would be unlikely to be caused by training, so it must've been a brutal fight... or perhaps torture. My killing intent has almost no effect on you even though your teammates practically suffocated them. You were able to match me in combat when your sensei could not. Yet, I can see that you're the same age as them, but so very different."

Hinata started to concentrate much more on the conversation. Naruto was the same age as them? How? They naturally assumed that he was older, but hadn't had his growth spurt yet. All kinds of little things and bigger things came back to her. The way he handled Kiba so well back during the Genin Test Kurenai had given them, how he fought on par with Zabuza, the fact that she knew nothing about him except for, sadly, only his name and specialties. Uzumaki Naruto was a complete mystery to all of them.

"True, very true." Naruto said. "But, I hate killing unecessarily. You seem to enjoy it. After all, you did kill the whole graduating class one year without even entering the Academy. That earned you your moniker, the _Demon of the Hidden Mist_, as well as the banning of the graduation exam." More horrified looks from Kiba and Hinata.

"Heh, you know a lot. What is your name, boy?"

"... Uzumaki, Uzumaki Naruto." Naruto didn't want to reveal his name, but figured it would be interesting to put the Demon of the Hidden Mist a little on edge.

Zabuza tensed. An Uzumaki? Here? He gripped his sword tightly. Zabuza now knew to keep a distance, one touch could finish him if he wasn't careful. He was fairly sure there were hardly any of them left, but who would've known that he'd fight one again? The last one was Uzumaki Kitoshi, a prodigious swordsman, unlike the rest of his clan. If he had lived in Kirigakure, the man would've been one of the best of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen in many generations. The Double Ninjato Dual-Wield Style was his strength and creation. He must've taught it to the boy.

"Well, that explains your swords." Zabuza grinned as he pointed at the matching styled swords. "This will be an interesting fight." And he disappeared into the mist.

-

Hinata gasped in pain. Senbon stuck out of her like a porcupine, though none had hit her vitals yet. Kiba had used his Fang Over Fang in an attempt to break free from the barrier of ice mirrors surrounding them. However it only cracked the mirrors slightly before repairing rapidly. He tumbled to the ground with another couple of senbon in his leg.

"Dammit! We've got to do something! Hinata, make a break for the gaps between the mirrors! I'll try to hold him off with Akamaru!" he shouted.

**"Fang Over Fang!"**

Kiba and Akamaru formed into their signature vortex combination, smashing into the ground and rebounding off the mirrors. Hinata scrambled towards the gaps. She knew Haku was indeed moving through each of the mirrors at extreme speeds, making it seem like he was in more than one place. She had attempted to track his movements but it was to no avail. The Byakugan gave her an excellent X-ray like vision in all direction except for a small blindspot by her back. Unfortunately, it could not track movement so easily like the Sharingan. It was through reading from the muscles and off hand gestures that they could keep up with movement and only a very skilled Byakugan user could do so.

A few feet away from the gap, a senbon sliced through the back of her leg. Hinata stumbled and fell as a strong hand gripped the collar of her coat and tossed her back. Kiba immediately switched directions for where Haku had stopped, but he stepped back in time into one of his mirrors as Kiba smashed the ground where he stood.

"Grrrr... I almost got him. Hinata are you alright?"

She nodded, even though her leg certainly was not. The last cut was much deeper than the previous ones she received from Haku. Hinata got up shakily, leaning heavily on her right leg. She wasn't done, not yet.

"Alright! We'll try again! Let's go Akamaru! **Fang Over Fang!"**

They charged again, but once the mirror cracked, it repaired itself to fast for Kiba or Akamaru to hit it again. Hinata tried again to reach the gaps between the mirrors, despite every step her legs took flared with pain.

Haku became impatient. 'Why don't they just give up? It's hopeless. They won't win against my jutsu. If they continue to oppose Zabuza-sama, I will have to kill them!' he thought.

He swiftly passed through his mirrors towards Hinata. She gasped as he brutally kneed her in the gut and flew back from the force. Enraged, Kiba came out of his vortex, throwing a vicious punch towards Haku's face. Haku jumped back in time into his mirrors.

'Damn! I'm running out of chakra. I need to end this _now!'_

He threw a multitude of senbon towards the genin. Several of them found their way to Akamaru's legs when he stopped spinning as well and he crumbled to the ground, immobile. Kiba cried out in rage as a volley of senbon struck him as well. The attack pierced deeply into torso and a couple through his neck. Hinata watched in horror as Kiba went limb, collapsing to the ground. His eyes were glassy and his breath started to come out in ragged gasps.

"Go... Get out... of here..." And his eyes closed and his shallow breaths of air slowly faded away.

She fell to her knees, frozen in shock at the death of her teammate. Haku stared sadly at her behind his mask, but death was inevitable in this fight.

"A brave boy. But I will not allow anyone to oppose Zabuza-sama. You should have left before you got in the way." Hinata did not respond to this. Instead she looked up with a blank expression with empty eyes.

What could be described next was that something snapped within that gentle demeanour. It wasn't really anger, but a mix of despair and fury. All of a sudden a huge amount of chakra lashed out from within her. It was so powerful, it smashed into the mirrors, leaving large gashes behind. With a reddish flare, it shattered the remaining mirrors. Haku was blown back hard from the sheer power released.

'What in the world?! Who is she? Is she a monster!?' Haku thought.

Hinata stood up. The senbon that had struck her had been immediately repulsed, shooting everywhere. The red chakra then morphed itself into a blue colour and began to form an armour like shape around her body. The chakra became denser around her head, forming a helmet of chakra. It also became noticeably denser on her shoulders, chest, forearms and shins. Haku, seeing the situation going rapidly out of hand, began a seat of hand seals.

**"Ice style: Ice Spear jutsu!"**

From the remnants of his shattered ice mirrors, he formed the spike that shot out of the ground, aiming straight for Hinata. She made no attempt to dodge, instead she let it smash into her forearm she held up in front of herself. The chakra armour cracked slightly as the spike drove into it. Haku swore. He was now seriously outmatched with a heavily armored opponent.

"Zabuza-sama... forgive me..."

-

Kurenai grunted as she ducked under another of Zabuza's massive swings. Then she flipped backwards, avoiding a nasty kick. She ran through some hand seals for genjutsu. However when she executed it, he simply disintegrated into a puddle of water. Kurenai took a step back on high alert for the next attack. Zabuza then lept out from behind her, the Kubikiribocho held high above his head. Thankfully, Naruto beheaded him from behind, revealing to be a water clone as well.

**"Wind style: Great Breathrough jutsu!"**

A huge gust of wind flew out of his mouth, blasting away the mist and Zabuza, (who was apparently in that direction). Naruto jumped back to where Tazuna was.

'The original is almost here. At least he could use the eye.' he thought.

Zabuza growled in frustration. **"Water style: Giant Vortex jutsu!"**

Naruto grabbed Tazuna and jumped over the side of the bridge just in time as a huge wave blew over the whole walkway. He landed sideways on one of the supports for the bridge. Kurenai was not so lucky and got hit with the full power of the jutsu. She flew back a few dozen meters away hitting the surface hard.

Suddenly something hard grabbed her, putting a stop to her rough tumble.

'Shit...' she thought when she looked up into the bandaged face of Momochi Zabuza. Kurenai tried to roll away, but he held her firm. His fist slammed into her face, making her head spin immensely. Before he could strike again, a sword whizzed through the imbedding itself in his chest. Zabuza burst into water.

Naruto stood off several meters away, his arm outstretched. Then Zabuza lept and brought his cleaver down on the boy. Naruto raised his other sword to block it. The force pushed him to one knee and his sword pressed hard against his shoulder, pinning it to him.

'Crap, I can't even make shadow clones to fight him off. Not even a few of my other jutsus. Is the original here yet?' he thought panicked. Suddenly, he felt a large spike in chakra. 'No way... The Nanabi?! The seal is weaker than I thought!' Although he had never felt the Nanabi's chakra, he felt a distinct sense of chaos in it, unlike the feel of malice when he used the Kyuubi's chakra. Naruto felt his frustration rise. He needed to stop it. There was no telling what it would do...

Kurenai was already locked in combat against three water clones. She blew out a few fire jutsu in an attempt to hold them off. Naruto could see she was tiring quickly as she had a nasty gash at her side and numerous smaller cuts and bruises. If this continued any longer, someone was going to die.

Naruto brought up his free hand, nicked his thumb, drawing out blood. He placed his bloody thumb on the scabbard by his waist.

**"Summoning jutsu!"**

The ninjato returned to its sheath in a burst of white smoke. Naruto drew it in a vicious slash, cutting a deep gash in Zabuza's knee. Zabuza gasped stumbling back and releasing the weight of his sword on Naruto's shoulder. Naruto stood up raising his hand with his index and middle finger.

**"Wind style: Wind Blade jutsu!"** he shouted as he made a slashing motion with his arm.

The blade of wind sliced deeply into him, but not enough to kill. He collapsed to the ground bleeding heavily. Naruto fell to the ground in exhaustion close to dispersing, but relieved at the same time.

"He took his bloody sweet time..." he said before disappearing in a poof of smoke.

-

Hinata could not think clearly. A strange haze had swept over her thoughts and all she could feel was grief and rage. Her body felt like it was on fire, but she did not collapse in pain. Blood trickled out from her nose, a sign of the strain the new chakra was putting on her.

Hinata could only think about killing the masked one in front of her.

She charged head on, faster than what she thought she could. Unfamiliar hand signs appeared in her hands almost instinctively. An extremely sticky substance burst of her mouth and fell on Haku's legs as he tried to get away. It stuck to the ground, effectively immobilizing him. Hinata threw a hard punch to his face, not bothering to use her Gentle Fist. Haku's face flew back as his mask was ripped from him.

Hinata prepared to punch him again, but his face stopped her. It was full of sadness and a certain innocence despite what he had done. She stopped, the hazy feeling in her mind clearing in an instant. No, she couldn't kill him, she just couldn't.

"Well? Weren't you going to hit me again? Kill me?" Haku said quietly as the glue like substance disolved around his feet.

Hinata shook her head. "N-No, I-I'm not a k-killer. I-I can't." she said as the dense chakra around her diminished.

"I'm useless to Zabuza-sama. I have failed my master, I'm a broken tool with no use, no purpose. I am unnecessary."

"N-No-."

"Hinata-san you do not understand. Remember what I said about your precious people? Zabuza-sama is the only I fight for. Live for. He has given me a purpose to be necessary to him. You see... My parents are dead, I have no siblings. You are lucky to be part of a clan in Konohagakure. After a bloody civil war in Kirigakure, clans with kekkei genkai, bloodline traits, were hunted down because they caused massive amounts of deaths. Everyone came to fear them. My mother came from the Yuki clan which held the Ice Release kekkei genkai. She kept it a secret from my father and they married happily. One day I showed my kekkei genkai to my mother who hit me out of fear and made me swear to never demonstrate it ever again. Unfortunately my father found out and he killed my mother. He turned to me, but out of desperation, I killed him instead."

"I left my family home when I realized nobody would be waiting for me back there anymore, _nobody needed me._ I wandered the streets of Kirigakure until Zabuza-sama found me. Then I realized that someone wanted me, even though he thinks of me as his tool. But I am happy as my life became necessary. So kill me. To live without a purpose is a fate worse than death and I will never go back to it."

Haku looked sadly at her. Hinata stood still unsure of what to do until a wave of pain flared over her body. She collapsed to her knees coughing up blood as the powerful chakra around swirled. Haku knelt besides her, unsure of what to do. A hand slapped down on Hinata's back and she went still. The figure behind her was revealed as she drifted into unconciousness.

It was Naruto with a snarling fox mask on his face. Truth be told, he liked wearing it combat. It hid his emotions better than the cold mask he portrayed on himself at times, giving him a slight psychological edge. It also hid his left eye better. Haku took a step back. Was that an ANBU mask?!

"Sorry, but I'm not going to let Hinata kill you. Nice of you to tell her your story. It's good for them to learn about the hardships in other lands, so they wouldn't be so ignorant of how shinobi actually are."

"You're that boy... The strong one."

"Strong? I would never consider myself strong unless I could protect my comrades. Against _anyone_."

"I can't let you get in Zabuza-sama's way." Haku said, pulling out several sharp senbon.

"And I can't let you kill Tazuna, but I don't want to kill you either since you've spared Kiba. Honestly you and I are too much alike."

"What do you mean?"

"It means sweet dreams." Naruto said lifting up his eyepatch to reveal a fully mature _Sharingan._ Haku dropped like a sack from the ocular genjutsu. Naruto swiftly covered his eye again. That was a S-rank classified secret.

"Dammit, kid." came a voice. "I underestimated you."[A/N: Zabuza did not see his eye if you are wondering.]

Naruto turned to see Zabuza getting up from his pool of blood on the ground. His clone had finally dispersed itself once he had arrived. Thankfully it seems that he wasn't too late. Kiba was only suffering from the death state coma that Zabuza went through back at the lake. Kurenai was fairly exhausted from the fight and was resting near Tazuna. Naruto's only concern for his teammates was with Hinata. For that much chakra to leak out was dangerous and had shown that the seal had partially ruptured. If they were lucky, the Nanabi would recede and the seal would hold. If not, the seal would probably break very soon without his intervention.

"You are in no shape to fight."

"I'm not giving up on my dream." They stared down at each other while Kurenai observed from afar. Suddenly, before they could leap at each others throats, they were interrupted by the sound of clapping.

"Well, well, well, Zabuza. I give you a simple job of killing three brats, an old man and that weak woman. I'm sorely disappointed with you." A voice rang out.

They all turned towards the end of the bridge. Gato stood smuggly with about sixty thugs behind him. He was a short man with wild receding light brown hair. He wore a basic black business suit with a purple tie and a yellow shirt underneath and dark round glasses.

"What is the meaning of this?" Zabuza said curiously.

"A simple change of plans. You're not needed anymore, so we're getting rid of you." All the thugs grinned. Zabuza growled, he took a step forward but fell back to his knees in pain. He turned to Naruto.

"Well, I'm no longer in his employment. The bridge builder is safe from me and Haku."

Naruto nodded. "Fine." he turned to Gato. "Unfortunately for you, I've got a contract for your head." Intense killing intent leaked out from him, making even Zabuza tense up a little. The thugs froze where they were and Gato quickly ran to the back of his miniature army, screaming for his death.

"Kill him! What are you doing?! Kill the masked boy!_ Kill him!_" They stood still, unsure of what to do. Naruto walked closer to them until he was just several feet away.

"Well Kurama? They're in the way..." he said inwardly.

**"Sure... Whatever kit as long as you don't overdo it. You don't want to break the bridge."**

The thugs finally unfroze and charged at the boy. After all, what was one boy going to do? Little did they know that the red chakra spreading over the masked boy meant absolute destruction. The thick red chakra spread over Naruto, forming a one-tailed fox shaped shroud. He blinked and his right blue eye was replaced by a slited red one. Under his mask, the whisker like markings on his cheeks grew, taking a feral appearance, while his canines became much longer and visible.

Naruto lifted his hand and out shot a much bigger hand of the same chakra. It smashed into about a dozen of thugs, knocking them brutally over the the bridge. The others faltered in their charge. Naruto quickly lashed out another hand smashing another dozen of the bridge. He was very careful not to hit anything around on the bridge. The thugs backed up and ran away in fear leaving Gato behind. The pitiful man was frozen in horror.

The red shroud disappeared around Naruto. He quietly walked up to the trembling man and drew his sword.

"You know, Gato, I would've killed you earlier were it not for my circumstances. But never forget this: Zabuza is not the only demon of this world. You threatened my homeland, now you pay the price." And Naruto swiftly beheaded him. Good thing Inari didn't come. He was sure something like this would happen.

He turned back to his shocked sensei and Tazuna. The workers were just arriving now to the slightly bloody scene. Thankfully, there was hardly any damage to the bridge.

"Let's go."

-

END

Okay, a quiet ending. One more chapter for the Wave arc to wrap it up and some interlude/non-action filler stuff. I hope you don't mind Naruto having a Sharingan eye. Bye


	8. Mizuki and Orders

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Author's note: Okay, Chapter 8! Jeez... I'm really slowing down. I think all updates will be around every 2 weeks. Anyway, Team Seven makes a very, very short appearance (I don't quite feel ready to introduce them yet...). I know my story is a little rather Naruto-centric right now, but bear with me. I'm trying to squeeze the others in too and later chapters might take longer to write and post.

Chapter 8  
Mizuki and Orders

Kiba woke to a bright light. He felt sore, stiff and just a downright mess. He was lying on a simple flat mat with a thin red blanket covering him. Akamaru lay right next to him, like he always would. His thick grey jacket had been taken off and he wore a mesh armour shirt underneath. Kiba groaned.

"Nice to see you awake, Kiba." Came a woman's voice.

"Sen-... Sensei? I feel like I just got mauled by my mom in our... family training..." Kiba said weakly. "Hey... Ain't I supposed to be dead?"

"Don't worry, Kiba. You're not dead, Haku just put you in a sort of death state. You'll be fine in a few days." Kurenai responded warmly.

"Well... I sure felt like I did die. Hey... Where is Hinata? Is she alright?"

"Naruto is fixing her up. She's alright except for a bit of chakra exhaustion. She's asleep in another room." Kurenai lifted up a glass of water. "Drink up, Kiba. This will make you feel better."

He took the glass, gulping down its contents before realizing how thirsty he was. Now fully awake, he spotted a large form sleeping at the other end of the room with a long haired girl, no wait a minute, boy, by his side. Kiba blinked. Wasn't that Zabuza and... his partner, Haku?

Zabuza's entire torso was wrapped in bandages while Haku was trying to give him some herbal medicine he made earlier. Naturally, Kiba knew he should've hated the pretty-looking boy for nearly killing him, but since he was alive and so was Hinata, he really didn't much care about him.

Except for the fact that he was actually prettier than some of the hottest girls he knew.

'Too bad he's a boy...' He mused silently.

Kiba ran his hand over a few senbon holes. Since they weren't so big and were rather numerous, they weren't bandaged or patched up. Kiba tried to get up to stretch his body, but Kurenai firmly pushed him back down when he tried to do so.

"Sorry, Kiba, but you're not strong enough to go walking around. The induced death state locked up your muscles quite a bit like what rigor mortis would do." Seeing Kiba's disgruntled look, she continued. "Say, if you take it easy for the next few days, I'll teach you and Hinata water walking." With that, Kiba's eyes lit up at the prospect of learning something new. Kurenai chuckled.

'It's easy to motivate him like that.' she thought ruefully.

-

Naruto paced around the room, restless. He had just finished patching up Hinata's seal, but he wasn't sure if it would hold without constant maintainance. As he cursed the weakening seal, he scrounged around his brain and books for a replacement. Sealing a Tailed-Beast was so not easy. At all. Period. Trying to contain a mass of chakra worth about over a hundred jonin shinobi, required the best of seals. The seal his father used was almost instantaneous, not requiring any preparation. But of course, it costed his life and Naruto was nowhere near that level yet, even with his proficiency in other seals. He sat down in deep thought.

Hinata was sleeping peacefully on the floor next to where he sat, her shirt was pulled up to reveal the seal on her stomach. Naruto had taken off her headband to expose her Caged Bird seal on her forehead. He ran his hand over it, wanting to do something about the horrid seal. From what he knew, the Caged Bird seal would permanently seal off the Byakugan upon death, rendering it useless. He wouldn't have minded it were it not for the second part of the seal. That part was control. If anyone went out of control, the seal would inflict huge amounts of pain on the bearer, stopping him immediately. However, it could cause damage to the mind if used too long or too often. Cruel indeed, but it would stop the perpetrator anyway.

That thought painfully reminded him of Danzo. The man was an extremist, willing to resort to the more effective, dirtier ways of solving almost any problem. A war hawk, someone Naruto knew he should be wary of. Danzo preferred elimination and assassination to diplomacy and negotiation. True that killing the target would solve the problem immediately, but in Naruto's eyes, it only made a new problem. Diplomacy was nothing less than a headache filled with politics, negotiations, much scheming and somewhat obscure trust. The outcome was almost always unpredictable (except to a Nara) and sometimes only solved matters temporarily. The Sandaime preferred this way though, while Danzo went for the former. Though with the opposite mindsets, there was only one goal in each.

Protect Konoha.

Naruto's own philosophy was perhaps a mix of the two. He would protect his friends with his life and the cost of his own humanity. He would make sure that they never became like him, especially Hinata. His work in the ANBU ensured that Konoha could stay safe, but it was not the most glorious or rewarding work in the village. It would easily break you if you were unprepared for what lay ahead.

Naruto was very sure it was close to breaking him, if not already.

He hadn't had a peaceful sleep in so long. But he would not stop, could not stop.

He was a weapon for his village.

" 'Self-sacrifice...A nameless shinobi who protects peace from within its shadow...' " Naruto murmured quietly. A favorite quote from his sempai. Hinata stirred and slowly opened her eyes to the dim light of the room.

"You're finally awake." Naruto said. Hinata groaned and slowly sat up. She quickly blushed when she saw that her stomach was exposed.

"I was just correcting your seal." he explained before she could say anything.

"A-Ano... T-Thank you." she responded quietly. They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes, unsure of what to say. Then Hinata decided to say something.

"N-Naruto-kun... You are t-the same a-age as us, r-right?" Naruto dimly noted how she stopped using the more formal suffix.

"...Hai..."

"B-But wouldn't y-you be in the same g-graduation class as u-us?"

"No, I graduated early as some do." That was pretty much his cover lie to explain why they'd never seen him before in the graduating class or possibly around the Academy in the earlier years.

Hinata frowned slightly. That sort of explained his absence to a certain extent. Another question began to form at the back of her head. It seemed like a personal question, but she asked it anyway.

"Ano... N-Naruto-kun, why are y-you so strong?" He immediately tensed and blinked. Hinata sensed his discomfort and said "You d-don't have t-to s-say-"  
"It's alright. I don't think I'm very strong, but I've always trained hard to protect my friends. The people who are precious to me."

"... You m-mean like the p-precious people H-Haku told us a-about?"

Naruto nodded. "People who we love. Our friends, family, mentors, they're all people we want to protect. For us jinchuuriki, it is most important as there are few who would be our friends. Who would we be without them?"

Hinata thought back to all the people who were kind to her. Umino Iruka, a teacher at the Academy, never belittled her for her poor performance. In fact, he always encouraged her to do her best, unlike the other teachers. Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino were fairly nice to her, but never spent much time around her. Her cousin, Neji, and her sister Hanabi were the closest family she had. Even though Hanabi simply treated her as any Branch House member, Hinata loved her sister very much and wished they could become close like any other sister. Neji was always cold to her, but she called him nii-san anyway. Kiba was nice to her always. They'd never interacted much in their Academy days, but he felt like another brother since they became a team. Her jonin sensei, Kurenai, was always concerned with her well-being and seemed to care for her like a mother or older sister. Naruto was a mystery to her. He revealed her dark secret and his own to show her that she was not alone in this world. He was like her in so many ways, it could be seen as looking in a mirror. It felt like she was connected to him in a very strong way. She didn't know him well at all, but she knew things that others probably didn't know about him either. It was a strange feeling. Knowing someone so well while knowing so little at the same time.

All those people were important to her in her eyes.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and Tsunami poked her head in.

"Ah, Naruto. There is someone who wants to see you."

-

Hatake Kakashi and Team Seven were on their first C-rank together. It was actually a simple delivery job. The Hokage had given a few trade propositions to the Land of Waves ever since Gato was heard to be dead. Of course, as far has he knew, Naruto had sent back an early mission report on the Wave mission Team Eight was out on. Apparently it stated some very disturbing information about A-rank ninja and Gato after the a certain bridge builder.

When he had stepped into the Hokage's office, he knew it was a bad time to be asking for a C-rank mission. After much eye glares from the Uchiha kid, some restrained complaints from Sakura and extended annoyed periods of silence from Aburame Shino after every single D-rank mission (actually errands), he decided to ask for any available C-ranks to (hopefully) liven up his bored team. Their gloominess had only increased when Team Eight was first to go on a C-rank.

When they had stepped into the room, the Hokage was glaring daggers at the recent report before looking up.

xxxxx Flashback xxxxx

_"Hello Kakashi-san. Ready for another D-rank?" he said dryly._

_"Ah well, can we perhaps take a C-rank today? They've already done the necessary amount of D-ranks and I'm sure they could handle the occasional bandit that comes our way." Kakashi responded._

_"A C-rank, huh?" The Hokage glanced over to Team Seven then back to Kakashi and sighed. "Well, I do have a delivery mission for you. It shouldn't be to difficult." Kakashi noted that he stressed 'difficult' quite a bit._

_"Did something happen on the last one?" he asked innocently. The Sandaime tossed him the report he was reading. Kakashi caught it deftly while his team tried to not so discretly peer over his shoulder to see what he was reading. But Kakashi easily shrugged them off and began to read. His right eyebrow rose and looked back the Hokage who had a serious expression on his face._

_"Quite an incident, no?" he said._

_"Oh dear, Team Eight had a rough time." Kakashi commented._

_"Indeed. Now your job would be to deliver these trade agreements to one of the prominent nobles in the Land of Waves. I'm sure he'd know what to do about since the Land of the Waves does not have a daimyo."_

_"Understood. We'll leave in a couple of hours." Team Seven walked out not as gloomy as before. Kakashi was about to follow them out, but the Hokage signalled him to stay._

_"Kakashi-san, I need you to deliver some orders to Uzumaki Naruto who is stationed there with his team." he said in a low voice as he handed Kakashi two mission scrolls containing the details of each mission._

_"Orders?"_

_"There is unrest there as Gato apparently had a large part of his criminal empire built there. Naruto is to deal with the remnants of Gato's group. The other orders are the assassination of a former chuunin. Don't let anyone else but Naruto know the contents of the scrolls."_

_"Hai."_

_"You are dismissed then."_

xxxxx End xxxxx

Kakashi always had mixed feelings about the nature of the missions Naruto always took. Sure, there was such little military power Konoha wielded these days, but it was no excuse to be handing assassination assignments to twelve year olds. He was very sure that the Sandaime detested doing this to him, however he was sure that quite a few prominent citizens with a lot of political influence were certainly against him and fully supported the idea of Naruto as a human weapon of Konoha. It was sickening to think that they thought of him as nothing more than a tool, much less human.

In truth, Naruto was the closest person to him, like a little brother ever since the death of his sensei, Namikaze Minato, teammates,Uchiha Obito and Nohara Rin, and father, Hatake Sakumo. Kakashi felt somewhat guilty for never being able to take care of him after the Kyuubi attack that night. Even more so when he saw the kind of personality he had now. Naruto had the same apathetic attitude as Kakashi himself had. But no one but him and the Sandaime realized it was all just a mask to hide the pain he felt after the deaths of the only family he ever had. Eventually that mask just stuck to his face and replaced the former happy, idiotic, loud personality.

Kakashi decided as his sensei's student, he would help ease Naruto's pain by being there for him as a sensei and good friend. It was the only thing he could really do, being a distant person. He wasn't cut out to be a father figure to him, he wasn't the kind of person to care of a child. That was perhaps why he never took care of him in his early years, even though he considered doing it.

Team Seven arrived in the Land of Waves by a boat next to the nearly completed bridge. Sakura marveled at the bridge, Sasuke brooded and Shino observed nearby insects. Kakashi himself read his little orange book and thought back on the team dynamics. Just as he thought from day one, Sakura, the Uchiha fangirl, would pay 100% of her attention on Sasuke and almost completely ignored Shino. Shino was irked by this, like any other Aburame but he found a quiet friendship with the Uchiha. As for Sasuke... Kakashi found that the boy had both an inferiority and superiority complex, which if it wasn't kept in check, it could cause some major problems.

It was sunset by the time they'd arrived in the small fishing village. Kakashi decided to give Naruto's orders first as his location was closer. Team Seven travelled down to the residential area by the water's edge and Kakashi promptly knocked on the door to the said address. A young woman with long black hair opened the slidable door.

"Um, hello. Is there something you need?" she asked.

"I have some stuff to deliver to N-" At that moment, Kurenai came down the stairs to the entry hall.

"Kakashi-san? What are you doing here?" she asked, confused to see another shinobi team outside the house.

"Ohayo, Kurenai-san. Just dropping off some letters for Naruto-kun."

"Letters?" she asked suspiciously.

"Yep." The woman with the long black then realized who they were.

"Oh! So you're shinobi of Konoha, right? My name is Tsunami, my father is their client. Please come inside, you are very welcome here. You can stay the night if you want. I understand that its almost dark out and it would be a pain to camp out in the nearby forest."

"It would be our pleasure." Kakashi said after glancing briefly at his team. "By the way, can I see Naruto for second?"

-

"So sensei, orders?" Naruto said as Kakashi closed the door. They stood alone in one of the bedrooms, since receiving classified missions required some privacy.

"Hai. Here they are." Kakashi pulled out two small red scrolls and tossed them to him. "Two B-ranks. One is a clean-up job for any of Gato's remaining thugs. Most of them could be taken down by a skilled genin, one-on-one, so it was classified as a B-rank mission for the sheer amount he had and the few actually skilled ones." Kakashi scowled under his mask. He knew that Naruto hated to take the _massacre_ missions.

"The other one calls for the assassination for a former Academy teacher, Mizuki. He apparently tried to steal the the Forbidden Scroll of Sealing that contains many kinjutsu. Mizuki failed and fled Konoha. Intel says that he holed up here in the Land of Waves somewhere in the wilderness. He has been classified as a high C-rank missing-nin. You are also to interrogate him for his reasons for the attempted theft and bring his head back to Konoha."

"Hai. It will be done." Naruto said in an emotionless tone.

"Very well. It seems like the bridge will done in about a week and a half. Kurenai-san has told me that your team intends to stay until it is finished. You most likely have until then to complete the missions."

"I'll leave in the morning, then."

-

Hinata did not know why Naruto began to act colder at dinner. His voice held almost no feeling each time he spoke. Team Seven only looked curiously at Team Eight's rather odd member, except for Sasuke, who glared at him. Naruto payed no attention to the concerned looks he was getting from Kurenai and even Kiba. He robotically finished his dinner and went up to bed early. Hinata finished up eating quietly and decided to go find him. She went down to the end of the hall, past the room where Zabuza and his partner, Haku, stayed. Those two hadn't left their room yet for any of the meals or other stuff. Tsunami normally brought some food up for them after lunch and dinner.

"N-Naruto-kun?" she said after knocking on the last door in the hall. It was Naruto's room.

"Yes?"

"Are y-you alright? Y-You seemed... u-upset at dinner."

"I am fine."

"A-Are you sure?"

"Yes." Hinata frowned. She knew Naruto to be distant and somewhat secretive, but he had been even more so today when Kakashi had talked to him. It was obvious to her eyes that something was bothering him. Hinata sat down on the ground, her back leaning against the wooden door frame.

"You don't have to hide everything, you know." she lamented quietly. Suddenly the door slowly opened. Naruto gazed down at her from the doorway.

"Some things... Are best left unsaid." he almost whispered. Hinata looked up at him.

"But w-we are your t-teammates. We shouldn't i-ignore you like this." Little did she know, those words touched him deeply. They cared about him this much? As far as he knew, he was likely to rejoin ANBU once they were promoted to chuunin. They wouldn't be his teammates anymore. He'd still be killing. He was a murderer, why should they care about a person like him?

It was only because they didn't know.

"Don't you t-trust us?"

Naruto sat down next to Hinata out in the hall. "It's not that I don't trust you or anyone else. Some things... I can't say no matter what. It's classified stuff that I have to do, so please don't be upset."

"A-Alright." she said, but she didn't leave. Together they sat in silence, simply acknowledging each other's company. Naruto didn't know why he felt so at ease in her presence. It was comforting feeling, but he had no idea of its real meaning. They sat there a little longer before realizing that everyone must've gone to bed. Naruto had plenty of trouble sleeping these days just from the nightmares and had no problems going a few hours of sleep short. Although it was late, she didn't leave.

"You should sleep now. It's not good to lose some sleep." he said, though he knew it was hypocritical.

"Y-You don't s-sleep either."

"Point taken." The night droned on and Hinata's eye lids became heavy and eventually she did fell asleep. Naruto slipped an arm under her knees and around her shoulders, picking her up in a sort of bridal-style way. He carried her to her room, placed her gently on the mat and covered her with a red blanket. Naruto sat down next to her, cross-legged. He didn't want to leave, her presence was simply too comforting.

So he watched her sleep and then he too fell asleep. Unlike most nights, he dreamt of nothing, but that night filled him with a peaceful feeling he hadn't felt in years.

-

Naruto left early, before anyone woke. He quickly got packed his bag with his tools and put on his fox ANBU mask. He headed towards Gato's hideout first, deciding that was the best place to start. Infiltrating the hideout, he found that many of the mercenaries were still there. Surprised, he used much stealth to re-enter Gato's office undetected. There he found the locations of a few warehouses, a couple more bases, and several documents on his dealings with the Shinobi Nations. Naruto kept the documents and once he was out, blew the place sky high with the Detonation Seals he placed earlier and killed any survivors. Then he formed a few dozen shadow clones to scour the countryside for the remaining bits of the Gato' company, thugs and influence.

A dirty job, but someone had to do it.

Meanwhile, Hinata woke to the sound of chirping birds. She looked down at the blanket and around the room, remembering that she didn't fall asleep in her own room. Suddenly, Kurenai opened the door.

"Hinata, come and have breakfast. Everyone is already downstairs."

"H-Hai, sensei."

Kurenai sat outside on the porch reading Naruto's note he left for her.

_Sensei,_

_New orders have come up. I will be away for several days, most likely until the bridge is done._

_Naruto_

Annoyance and irritation were the first things to come to her mind. One reason was that the note was extremely vague, two was that he didn't just say that in person! Kurenai quickly calmed herself down by rationalizing to herself that these orders were for him only, but it still irked her immensely.

Team Seven joined Team Eight at breakfast, before leaving to deliver their trade agreements. After breakfast, Kurenai led her team to the docks to start their water walking training. There she explained how to stay afloat by channeling chakra to their feet, just like in the tree climbing exercise, and maintaining a steady, but adaptable flow of chakra to match the shifting level of water underneath them. She demonstrated once before letting Kiba and Hinata try.

Kiba took one step and sunk like a rock. Akamaru had a little more success, able to only keep one of his paws on the surface. Kurenai patiently explained to Kiba that he didn't put enough chakra in his feet when he had resurfaced. Hinata decided to channel much more to her feet to avoid Kiba's mistake, but nearly ended up blowing herself out of the water. Much of the morning and afternoon went on like this, as well as the whole afternoon. It was either too much chakra or too little. But in the end, it paid off. Hinata was only able to keep one leg stable in knee deep water, while Kiba managed to stand but was knee deep in water like Hinata. Akamaru was the best though as he managed to get two paws on the surface of the water.

Satisfied, Kurenai led them back to the bridge builder's house to clean up.

"Hey sensei, where did Naruto go? We didn't see him anywhere today!" Kiba said suddenly. Hinata was also thinking about that too, but they'd been too preoccupied with the water walking exercise to ask.

"He had some errands to run. It'll take him a few days to complete though."

"What kind of errands take a few days to complete!?" Kurenai didn't answer, but the word 'missions' came to her mind.

"Why don't you go clean up. You smell like a fish." she said instead. Kiba scowled and pouted a little before going upstairs to shower. Akamaru followed, which left Hinata with her sensei.

"Sensei, I-I don't think e-errands could take that l-long. Is N-Naruto-kun on a m-mission?" she said unexpectedly. Kurenai bit her lip. She was going to have to strangle those Academy teachers for really screwing up her Academy record! 'Bad academic marks my ass! This girl is way smarter than those grades that were given to her!' she raged inwardly.

"Well... I guess so. Sorry for not telling you, but Naruto prefers to keep these things secret for his own reasons and it is a private thing for him I guess." Kurenai said with a small smile on her face to reassure the girl.

"Oh. I-I guess that's w-why he w-was like that y-yesterday." Hinata lamented. 'Very perceptive too! Why the hell was she second last to Nara Shikamaru?!' went through Kurenai's head.

"I guess so. Go clean up, Hinata. We can talk later." she said, changing the subject. Hinata nodded and went off.

"I've got a lot off things to do when we get back..." Kurenai muttered quietly as the young girl disappeared into the house.

-

It was a whole week before Naruto managed to track down Mizuki. Somehow he managed to pick up a strange scent while scouting around a river. It was just like the general scent of the village, mixed with a half familiar stale scent. A human scent. Now, what was someone doing in the middle of nowhere? Most likely hiding. Of course it could've been anyone, but it was worth looking into.

It started from the small clearing next to it. Very faint, but just enough for Naruto to detect it. He followed it to a small cave in a fairly dark forest. By then, his nose was bleeding quite a bit from the constant channeling of chakra to his nose. To enhance the sense of of smell, one must do that. Of course, it required much practice to perfect and the Inuzukas seem to be the only ones to have a natural affinity in this, though it's not surprising. Naruto was not an Inuzuka and he never had the best chakra control either, so his nose still bled a little at times.

Mizuki was resting by the cave wall close to the entrance. His forehead protector was a black bandana and he wore the standard uniform of Konoha with a large shuriken strapped to his back. The chuunin watched his surroundings warily as Naruto observed him, undetected.

'High C-rank for abilities. Seems so... His chakra isn't very strong either...' he thought. If he was his former knuckleheaded nine year old self, he would have charged in recklessly without a plan. However he wasn't, so he took a much more stealthy approach to apprehending the missing-nin.

Naruto waited patiently for nightfall. It was then when shinobi have the greatest advantage as, well as disadvantage. The shadows grew longer with each passing minute. He waited until the sun light no longer touched the great trees around them and the many forest critters had settled down for the night. Mizuki readied his pack, preparing to leave the cave. Missing-nin never stay in one place for too long.

He finished and leaped up onto a nearby tree, scanning for any signs of danger. Unfortunately for him, Naruto lunged at him as he looked away from where Naruto had hid in the shadows. Mizuki was too surprised to scream or barely make any noise as Naruto's arm swiftly wrapped itself around his neck in a tight choke hold. Carefully, he stopped the blood flow to Mizuki's brain by compressing his arteries with his choke hold, effectively knocking him out in less than a minute. Naruto placed one of his Body Binding seal tags on him to hold him in place for the interrogation process. Then he slapped the former chuunin's face, hard and several times until he groaned and opened his eyes.

"Rise and shine, sleepy head." Naruto said in a dead monotone voice. Mizuki's eyes flew open to see the fox masked ANBU staring straight back at him.

"Who are you?" he said, panicked.

"Konoha caught up to you, Mizuki-san. Did you honestly think that you would be able to steal the Forbidden Scroll of Sealing and get away with it?" Mizuki said nothing. "The moment you touched that scroll, your life was in forfeit, but my superiors are interested in why you took it."

"I'm not telling you anything." Mizuki snarled.

"You may say so, but not likely after this..." Naruto pulled off his black eyepatch, revealing a red eye with three spinning tomoe which made eye contact with Mizuki.

And then, darkness.

-

Naruto sighed as he trudged back to Tazuna's house. Mizuki had been nothing but a dead end. Apparently, he had some _delusions_ on achieving great power through the kinjutsu in the scroll. Then he mentioned something about Orochimaru, but it sounded like the twisted snake Sannin was just playing mind games on him for nothing more than sick pleasure.

'Orochimaru... How I'd love to kill you myself...' Naruto thought darkly. Their history was a very dark thing for him, but he could restrain himself from running off and hunting him down himself. Naruto knew that he couldn't kill him yet.

His shadow clone memories gave a light migraine too. The rest of Gato's thugs were a dead and Mizuki's severed head was sealed away in storage. Naruto wanted to throw up as soon as it was all over, but his training would not allow him so.

ANBU these days went through severe psychological training, rendering most as emotionless as the original ROOT division Danzo formed a while back. It was Danzo's idea ever since the two merged a few years back. With the low military power Konoha wielded, drastic actions were taken to avoid any war with the other nations. That meant stronger, more efficient shinobi to compensate for the large losses in the past.

It also meant human weapons.

Naruto stopped just outside the door. His sensei was _so_ going to yell at him for this...

-

End

Well, a bit of a lame ending, but I got stumped. Just a bit of interaction between the Konoha 11/12 for the next chapters. The 'clean-up-Gato's-scum' mission was very random of me. Sorry. I was hoping to expand on it more and it was meant to show the kinds of missions Naruto gets handed out. Until next time.


	9. Training Camp, Part 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Author's Note: Ack! Sorry for the long update time, but I've been really busy and I havn't been able to post the chapter. However I expanded it quite a bit and it is the longest chapter so far. The plot will be slow for a bit. I want to expand much more on the characters and the relationships. I think I'll add in a few minor pairings. The only one I've decided on is the NejiTenten pairing so far. I didn't wrap up the Wave arc very well, but I'll have some flashbacks that will go into far more detail. Zabuza and Haku will be minor characters until I find some places to add them in. I'll let you guys know if I've decided on others in later notes. Enjoy!

Chapter 9

Training Camp, Part 1

A week had passed since the Wave mission. They'd all said their goodbyes, Inari hugged Naruto tearfully and Zabuza and Haku went their seperate ways. Naruto had a sinking feeling in his gut that the next time he encountered them, it most likely would not be friendly. Naruto had given them the pack filled with money he got when he infiltrated Gato's hideout as a sort of peace offering. It worked out rather well in the end with Zabuza loosening up more. Naruto figured that he actually respected him, he was after money after all. Haku thanked him while Kiba raised an eyebrow. Who gives money, especially a large sum of money as a gift. In his defence, he figured that something good would come out of it.

Tazuna said goodbye to him alone and whispered that the new bridge would be called the Uzumaki Bridge after his clan. It brought a very large and very rare grin to his face after he heard that. Team Eight got the honor of being the first to cross the Uzumaki Bridge along with Zabuza and Haku. Then they parted ways, promising to see each other again.

Naruto had thought about returning to the ruins of Uzushiogakure and to his former home, but decided against it. It was too soon, too painful.

Naruto looked at the alarm clock next to him. 4:30 freakin' _AM_. Even he would be asleep by then but noooo. Kurenai, Kakashi and Team Ten's sensei, Sarutobi Asuma, son of the Sandaime Hokage, all left on an emergency mission. Guess who they decided to hand their genin to?

Maito Gai, the self-proclaimed 'Konoha's Sublime Green Beast of Prey', sensei to Team Nine and one of the best taijutsu specialist in Konoha.

He would've been extremely well respected were it not for his... _mannerisms._ Today was going to be a long day.

Naruto had some idea about why they would all hand them over to Gai. Asuma probably figured that his team was a little too lazy in their training and thought a few training sessions with Gai might motivate them in a way. Kurenai probably did this as payback for his disappearances during the Wave mission and for some extra taijutsu training for Kiba and Hinata. Kakashi... well, maybe Team Seven tried a little_ too_ hard to see behind his mask.

Naruto sat up from his bunk and rubbed his eyes under his mask. He hadn't slept at all and he seriously needed it for the next sixteen hours. He put away the book he was reading and strapped his armour pieces on. Then put on his green jacket over his 'public clothes'. They weren't supposed to be there until 5:15 AM, but he decided to get a headstart like usual, despite the bad time. On the way out, he stopped by the armory.

"Ohayo." he greeted the ANBU in charge of the weapons.

"Ohayo, Fox-san. You need something?" The ANBU greeted back. He stood by the door with a clipboard in his hands.

"I'm just checking to see if the item I requested is here."

"I'll go check. Give me moment." The ANBU disappeared inside and came back with a small package the size of tissue box. It had the words 'HANDLE WITH CARE' on it. "Is this it, Fox-san?"

Naruto took the box, inspecting it closely. Then he opened it and pulled out a strange eyepiece. It had three black leather straps to hold in place with a clip at the end. The eyepiece itself was a grey colour with a darkened lense to hide his Sharingan. It was big enough to cover up the scar tissue around his eye.

"This exactly what I wanted. Thank you Bird-san, but I must get going."

"Oh right. See you around I guess."

Outside, Naruto untied his forehead protector and took off his eyepatch. He ran a hand over the scar tissue over his eye. Even Kurama's chakra couldn't fully fix the skin from the burning of his eye. Then he strapped the eyepiece on. There was a second lense that completely blocked his Sharingan's sight, for the purpose of resting it. Naruto twisted one ring to release the obscuring lense. There was a slight click and the world blurred into view in incredible detail.

'Awesome. Now I can use my eye without anyone knowing.' he thought. 'Now for test number two.'

Naruto had requested a few more features to the device. He twisted two other rings and world got bigger. His eyepiece was able to zoom in and out, making it much easier to see in the distance in good detail. Satisfied, Naruto clicked the obscuring lense back into place and headed to Training Ground 17. He retied his forehead in a sideways fashion, much like how Zabuza wore his.

As usual, he was early, by thirty minutes to be precise. It was too dark to read, so he simply began to munch on an apple he brought with him. The minutes trickled by and then three shinobi came to the large green clearing. The girl was wearing a light pink sleeveless chinese style blouse with blue pants and brown hair tied up in twin buns. A boy was wearing a beige t-shirt with simple black shorts. He had long brown hair which was tied lower down his hair. His pale pupiless eyes gave away his status as a Hyuuga. The other boy next to him wore a horrid familiar green spandex outfit with his red forehead protector around his waist, like a belt and orange leg warmers. His black hair had been formed into shiny bowl-cut style and with his thick black eyebrows, he was easily the spitting image of Maito Gai, save for the very round eyes he had.

"YOSH!" he shouted. "Did you not hear? We are going to be training with some other genin teams for a while! How youthful!"

"Lee... Please don't start shouting this early in the morning." The girl of the team said. "I haven't woken up fully."

"But Tenten-san, we must be ready to start this youthful day! There will be so many youthful new faces coming to train with us!"

"I honestly pity the poor guys..." she muttered under her breath. Then she looked towards Naruto who was sitting quietly under a tree several meters away from them. "Hey, is he one of the new genin?"

Her teammates looked over to the lone boy. Then the Hyuuga boy spoke up. "It seems so. He's the teammate of my cousin."

Naruto noted that the Hyuuga boy had spoken the word 'cousin' a little distastefully as the team walked over to where he was sitting. The girl smiled nervously at him, while the Hyuuga simply glared at him. The mini-Gai flashed a winning smile with a thumbs-up pose at him.

"Good morning to you on this youthful day!" Naruto's very sensitive ears immediately began to ring. "My name is Rock Lee! What is yours?"

"Uzumaki Naruto."

"Wonderful! It is so nice to meet you!"

"... I see. Who are your teammates then?"

"This here is Tenten, the beautiful blooming flower of our team." Tenten gave a small wave and a slight blush at what Lee called her. He then gestured towards the Hyuuga. "And this here is Hyuuga Neji, my eternal rival!" Neji gave a slight scoff at his words.

"You've never beaten before and you never will, for it is fate."

"I will prove to you that I can beat you with just taijutsu! That is my nindo!"

"Hmpf."

Naruto looked at Tenten and something familiar tugged at the back of his mind. Then he realized that he'd seen her file before back at HQ. Given the fact that he worked closely with the two groups in the Black Ops, he had access to both ROOT and ANBU classified information. One day he was sorting out old reports and files and stumbbled across some files for over a dozen orphaned children. Apparently they were considered as candidates for the ROOT program. He remembered that Tenten's file was among them, but luckily she was never chosen.

He assumed this was Gai's team as they began to stretch and warm up a little, while he decided to meditate. Five minutes later, his own teammates turned up. Kiba greeted him with a large grin with Akamau resting on his head, while Hinata waved a little, but looked down when Neji glared at her. Team Seven came soon after on time, unlike their sensei with Team Ten behind them.

"What a drag. Why do we have to get up this early?" A boy with a black spiky ponytail and a lazy expression.

"The sensei that is looking after us wants us here early for training apparently." Another boy said. He was rather large and wore a bandana like forehead protector, but it let his hair stickout on top.

"I know, but couldn't he have waited for 6 o'clock instead?"

"Of course not! The Power of Youth waits for nobody!" came a loud, booming voice. Everyone turned to see a tall man with a Konoha flak jacket wearing a green spandex outfit and orange leg warmers. His face matched Lee's, save for its different shape and eyes. "To start off, lets have everyone introduce themselves and share one interesting fact about them!" He then gestured towards Kiba to start.

"My name's Inuzuka Kiba and this here is Akamaru." He pointed to the small white dog on his head. "We both come from the Inuzuka clan." he said. Then he nudged Hinata who was next to him.

"My n-name is H-Hyuuga Hinata. I w-want to become s-stronger to prove I-I'm not a failure." she said softly. Neji gave a glare but looked to Naruto who was about to go.

"My name Uzumaki Naruto." He paused, not wanting to reveal anything to personal. "I graduated at the age of ten from the Academy." he lied for his cover story. Everyone gave a questioning and slightly impressed look, but then Lee went.

"My name is Rock Lee! I cannot use ninjutsu or genjutsu, so I will become a great ninja with only taijutsu!" Gai had anime tears streaming at his declaration.

"Of course you will, Lee!" he said tearfully.

"Gai-sensei!" Lee said with tears as well.

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!

And somewhere in between, they hugged and somehow a sunset appeared behind them. Tenten burried her face in her hands, while Neji's eye twitched. Everyone else gaped at the bizarre and slightly disturbing scene before them.

"Ahem." Naruto coughed. "Can we move on please?"

They broke apart with the taller man in green spandex muttering "Of course, of course." Then he motioned for his female student to go.

"My name's Tenten and I don't have a last name. I'm a weapons specialist and my aim is dead on." she said with a mischievious grin while twirling a kunai on her finger. Then she nodded to Neji beside her.

"My name is Hyuuga Neji. I believe that fate is unchangeable." he said solemnly. He looked to the raven haired boy in the high collared blue t-shirt across from him.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I will avenge my clan one day." he said darkly. The pink haired girl next to him and the blond haired girl from Team Ten looked at him adoringly while everyone suppressed a shiver from his words. The Aburame boy went next.

"My name is Aburame Shino. I use my kikaichu, a type of chakra eating insect, in battle. Why? Because it is part of my clan techniques." he said in a quiet tone. His pink haired teammate went next.

"My name is Haruno Sakura! I like..." she giggled in Sasuke's direction, who promptly ignored her. "But I hate Ino-Pig!" The blond, Ino, shot her a glare, but then sniffed and was about to go next. However she was interrupted.

"Haruno Sakura?" Lee asked. He struck a pose with a wide grin full of shining teeth and a thumbs-up. "What a beatiful name! Will you please be my girlfriend?" Sakura stared at him as if he grew another head. Everybody gaped at him as well.

"... No."

"Why not!?"

"You're a wierdo." Lee facefaulted. His sensei comforted him with 'the Power of Youth' and so forth, while the platinum blond beside her went next.

"My name is Yamanaka Ino. I like Sasuke-kun and hate Forehead Girl." she said in a dignified voice. Sakura shot Ino her own glare before the lazy guy went.

"My name is ('yawn') Nara Shikamaru. I like watching clouds and sharing chips with my best friend, Choji." he said in a lazy tone. Then the large boy next to him went as the last one.

"Name's Akimichi Choji. I like to go out for BBQ with my team." Gai smiled brightly at them.

"Right! It is time to start our youthful training today! Since all of you are under my care for the next few days, we won't be taking any D-ranks and will train every day! Now run one hundred laps around Konoha and be back here before 10 o'clock or you will do one thousand push-ups for your lack of youth!" Everyone gaped once again, but Gai's team immediately dashed off along with Naruto who was already expecting an extreme workout.

"Are you serious?!" Ino asked with an incredulous look on her face.

"Off course I am! The Power of Youth waits for no one!" The remaining eight genin all looked at each other. Then Shino ran off after Team Nine and Naruto. Kiba and Hinata followed close by after realizing that Naruto took off the moment Gai meant go. They both believed that if Naruto was serious about this, Gai was too. Sasuke stared a little longer at Gai, but realized that it was training and it would make him stronger to hunt down Itachi. He then raced after the others. Sakura and Ino followed since the object of their affections left the training grounds. Choji lingered by Shikamaru who couldn't get his stunned expression off his face.

"Come on Shikamaru, it's one hundred laps or one thousand push-ups."

"What a drag, I think I'll do one thousand push-ups instead." And Shikamaru immediately sat down. Gai looked down at the lazy boy.

"Then it shall be two thousand push-ups for not trying at all! How unyouthful!" Shikamaru groaned, but started his push-ups. Choji glanced down at his friend and decided to join him.

Naruto panted hard as he ran back to the training grounds after his final lap. Thankfully with his previously intense training regime, he kept up without too much trouble, but hadn't had a workout like that since he was placed on Team Eight. Since they had their own training schedule, Naruto didn't find many days where he could just drop everything and train for several hours straight. He felt out of shape. Naruto skidded to halt next to an exhausted Tenten.

"Wow, no one's been able to keep up so easily with us before." she commented. He just shrugged and glanced at Shikamaru and Choji still doing their push-ups.

"Welcome back, Naruto! The Power of Youth is strong within you to be here so early!" Gai said. Truth be told, he gave an extra couple of hours more than usual for the deadline for them since they weren't accustomed to the extreme exercises he gave to his team. He wasn't very surprised that Naruto would keep up so well, though.

xxxxx Flashback xxxxx

_Naruto threw a punch towards Kakashi's face who dodged nimbly and countered. Naruto lept back to avoid the punch and began to form hand seals for one of his wind jutsu._

**"Wind Style: Air Bullet jutsu!"**

_A concentrated blast of wind shot out of the palm of his hand, heading straight for Kakashi. But it just ended up smashing a log that replaced the Copy Ninja at the last second._

_'Substitution.' Naruto thought. He looked around. 'Up, down, left, right, behind, ...this pattern is getting boring, sensei...'_

_He jumped upwards just as a pair of fingerless gloved hands rose up from the ground to grab his ankles. Naruto flipped back a few times, gaining some distance between his opponent as he dug his way out of the ground._

_"Impressive, Naruto. You're actually starting to keep up with me." Kakashi said._

_"Not if you overuse the same attack pattern."_

_"True. Anyway, how was your counseling session?"_

_"... She was too nosy. I don't want to talk about the promise I made to them. They died, but I could've saved them if I didn't promise and told him!" Naruto snarled._

_"You did the right thing... Clan jutsu is of the utmost importance."_

_"Even at the cost of your own family?"_

_Kakashi sighed. "Hundreds of others could die if those techniques fell into the wrong hands."_

_"But-"_

**"Dynamic Entry!"**

_A tall green spandex clad man practically jumped out of nowhere with a drop kick aimed for Kakashi's head. Kakashi eyed him lazily before leaning backwards so that the man smashed a nearby tree instead._

_"What now, Gai?" Kakashi sighed as the man turned around and gave him a huge blinding smile._

_"Kakashi, my rival! I challenge you to a race around the village." Kakashi sweatdropped._

_"Ummm... Gai, I'm in the middle of something." he deadpanned. "Can't it wait?" Gai looked over to the other person across from his great rival. A blond haired kid._

_"Hatake Kakashi! I did not know you actually took a student!"_

_"Uh... Well... His name is Naruto and he's almost eleven years old." Naruto blinked at the strange green spandex man in front of him._

_"He is truly youthful! May I have a go with him? I will be taking a team myself next year!" Kakashi's eyebrow rose, then he eye-smiled._

_"That's nice. Just don't... you know, overdue things." he said in a slightly lighter tone than his usual apathetic one. Naruto watched Gai warily, as if he expected him to go wild or something. Actually, waiting for him to go to go wild._

_"Kakashi-sensei, who is this?" he asked. Gai gasped._

_"How could you not know!? I am Konoha's Sublime Green Beast of Prey and Kakashi is my eternal rival!"_

_"... Sensei never told me he had a rival with huge eyebrows." Gai faceplanted himself anime-style on the ground as a flood of tears ran down his face._

_"Damn you Kakashi! Acting all hip and cool! How could you not tell your student about the great benefits of youth!" he moaned. Naruto blinked again. He figured that he should leave before this got out of hand. But before he could take a step, Gai grabbed the collar of his shirt and dragged him out to the middle of the training field, saying something about testing his Flames of Youth and what not._

_Naruto never had so many bruises that day. Gai was kneeling on the ground somewhat out of breath, which was rather commendable considering his extreme physical training. It had been an all out taijutsu match and Naruto lost after a straight hour of constantly evading kicks and punches with inhuman speed and strength without his Sharingan. He landed several good clean hits every few minutes but lacked the physical strength to damage his opponent._

_"That was such a youthful spar! Now I know how hard to push my students!" Kakashi looked up from his book with a dismayed expression with his eye. Gai sparred with Naruto with probably 75% of his actual strength. And Naruto was an ANBU Black Op._

_"Uh, Gai. Naruto is a little stronger than the academy students. Don't use your best Leaf Hurricane kick or pull out your nunchaku on their first spar with you. Nor should you make them do five hundred laps around the village on their hands like you do."_

_"Do not fear! My exercices will not kill them! I will simply push them twice as hard!"_

_"... Nevermind."_

xxxxx End xxxxx

Gai thought back on their first spar. It wasn't until after he got Team Nine that he found out about Naruto's ANBU identity. Of course, his insane workout regime did not kill his students. He looked over to them fondly. Lee had joined Shikamaru and Choji with their push ups, but was doing three thousand and on his thumbs instead. Tenten was sparring with Neji like usual. They considered themselves as the only sane half of Team Nine, so they spent quite a bit of time together, mostly training together. It wasn't hard to see that they were rather close despite Tenten's annoyance with Neji's belief in fate.

Nobody arrived within the next hour. Naruto had pulled out his book and began reading up on seals that can contain huge masses of chakra. He needed to fix Hinata's seal soon and there was no telling if Jiraiya, one of the Sannin and best fuuinjutsu master around Konoha, besides the Sandaime and Shimura Danzo (not that he would trust Danzo on something like this), would be back anytime soon.

He got through a good portion of the book before Uchiha Sasuke arrived at 9:30 AM. Thirty minutes before the due time. He collapsed in an ungraceful manner, wheezing hard. Then Shino and Kiba turned up just barely in time at exactly 10 o'clock. Since Kiba's taijutsu involved plenty of speed and stamina, he was very physically strong for his age. Shino ranked second in the entire graduating class, so all his skills would be well honed.

Hinata arrived fifteen minutes later and passed out from sheer exhaustion. Naruto knew that speed and stamina wasn't her strongest suit and silently congratulated her for nearly making it there on time. Sakura and Ino arrived thirty minutes later once Hinata had woken up.

"It is sad to see that our blooming kunoichi are not so physically strong! One thousand push-ups it is to regain your youth!" Gai shouted out. Sakura and Ino groaned loudly, while Hinata looked down, depressed. Naruto tapped her shoulder and she looked up, startled.

"I'll do them with you."

"B-But you f-finished on time! It w-won't b-be fair t-to-" she protested, but he cut her off.

"Your my teammate. I won't leave you behind." Hinata opened her mouth to protest again when Kiba came up behind her and grinned.

"He's right, Hinata. We're a team. We laugh together, fight together, suffer together. We don't leave anyone behind." Kiba said and Akamaru yipped happily. And he lay down on the grass, next to her right side. Naruto lay down to her left. The other genin didn't pay much attention towards them (Neji glared, though), while Gai and Lee went on about how they were such a youthful team. It was agonizing throughout the whole time. Hinata's arms burned and she really wanted to lie down, just how Sakura was doing, but she wouldn't. She wanted to get stronger, she didn't want to lose anymore.

After a gruelling hour, they finally finished. Naruto managed to get up immediately while his teammates rested on the ground for a few more minutes. Sadly after all that, Gai made everyone do five hundred squats, two thousand jumping jacks, and seven hundred lunges.

'I should've slept, nightmares or no, for at least _one_ hour.' Naruto groaned inwardly.

"Don't worry," Tenten attempted to reassure her fellow kunoichi. "Me and Neji have survived this for a year. You'll just feel like you've been through hell and back." However, it wasn't really reassuring.

"Hey Naruto, what's up with that little device on your eye? I thought you lost your eye." Kiba said as he moved to the jumping jacks. Hinata was also staring discretely at his left eye as well.

"I didn't lose it. It was damaged in an accident and I was waiting for a new eyepiece to correct my vision. The eyepatch was just something to cover it up since it was useless like that." Naruto lied.

"Oh."

Naruto finished fourth out of the twelve genin, behind Team Nine. He was still stretching out all the aches and burning muscles when Gai told them to pair up for sparring. Ino and Hinata went together, Shikamaru paired up with Shino, Sasuke went with Sakura (much to his disappointment and to her delight and not to mention Ino's fury). Naruto ended up with Lee, Tenten with Neji and Choji with Kiba.

"YOSH! Let us begin this youthful spar!" Lee shouted as they faced off at the end of the training field, away from the others. Lee got into his taijutsu stance, the same that Gai used. Naruto slipped into his much lower stance. Lee was Gai's protege, his fighting style would be exactly like Gai's, so his taijutsu would be his strongest suit. He had also learned of Lee's incapability of being unable to use ninjutsu or genjutsu, allowing him to focus solely on taijutsu.

Lee lunged forwards, aiming a punch for his head. Naruto dodged and grabbed Lee's elbow, flipping over him using the momentum from his charge. Lee twisted in the air, landing evenly on his two feet before spinning around a roundhouse kick to the blond boy's head.

'Damn, he's fast!' Naruto thought as he ducked and blocked a backhand from Lee when he spun after the kick. He aimed a punch for Lee's open side. Lee pivoted closer to Naruto and the punch sailed into empty air and threw another spinning kick to Naruto's exposed back. Naruto rolled forward to avoid it. He stood up and barely managed to cross his arms to block a lightning fast high kick to his gut. The brute force of the kick was absorbed by his armguards as Naruto soared into the air.

'Oh Kami, he's using the Primary Lotus!' Naruto realized. Lee jumped upwards, just below him. Wind chakra erupted onto his right hand as Lee's bandages flew around him. As they began to wrap around him, Naruto swung his arm, severing the bandages. Lee's eyes widened and he twisted away from him when he swung his non-chakra infused hand towards Lee's face. Lee landed easily on the ground while Naruto had to twist himself so that he could land without injuring himself. His feet hit the ground hard and he rolled to avoid having his legs take too much of the impact. They almost went at each other again, but Gai was making a mad dash towards them.

"LEE! What have I told you about using that jutsu!" he shouted and then punched him. Everyone gaped (except for Neji and Tenten who just continued to spar).

"I'm sorry, Gai-sensei! But I got caught up in the burning passion of my youth!" And he began to tear up. Then Gai began to tear up too. Then...

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

And you know what happens. Naruto looked away at the horrifying scene right next to him. He could handle the scenes of bloody corpses and the dark chambers in the ANBU Interrogation Unit, but he could not bear to look at that ridiculous sunset and a highly emotional hug between sensei and pupil (more like father and son). Yes, it was too embarrassing to look at. However, it awoke older memories in his mind. His three cousins with his aunt, grand-mother and uncle all together and-

A hand fell on his shoulder.

"Are you all right, Naruto-kun?" Gai said in an uncharacteristic low voice. Naruto almost flinched at his touch. He realized that his hands were shaking from the swarm of bittersweet memories rushing around in his head.

"I'm fine." he responded curtly. He watched Gai turn back to Lee and order him to do three hundred laps around the training grounds on his hands as punishment for using the Primary Lotus without his permission. That was close. Had he not reacted in time, he would've been flattened into a pancake in a crater. Lee's taijutsu was impressive. He was pretty fast, even without his weights.

'What to do now? I've got no sparring partner.' Naruto thought as he sat down under the shade of a tree, drinking water from a small canteen he brought along with him.

"Hey! Do you want to have a go?" A girl's voice said. He looked up to see Lee's teammate, Tenten, starring down back at him. "Neji's gone off to challenge the Uchiha. Geniuses and their egos..." she scowled.

"Sure." And she smiled widely.

"Alright, just give me a second to get all my weapons back." Tenten sprinted off to a section of the training grounds that was practically covered in pieces of sharp metal. Amazingly in a few minutes, she managed to collect every single kunai, shuriken, whatever, on the field. Naruto strapped his ninjato around his waist, since the battle seemed to be rather weapon orientated.

"Here we go!" In no time at all, the sky was filled with a storm of shuriken. Naruto drew his sword in a smooth motion, knocking away one a little to close to 'down there'.

'Thank Kami I have this...' he thought. He moved in a graceful dance, parrying any shuriken that came too close. A few times they entered his blindspot. However, he managed to turn his head around, negating his the holes in his vision to the rather straightforward attack. The last one he managed to catch it on the tip of his blade by the hole in the middle of the tool.

"Wow, that's some pretty good kenjutsu." Tenten commented.

"I had a good teacher." he replied as another wave of flying sharp objects came at him. A spear sailed next to his head and impaled itself into the ground.

"Mind if I ask who?" she said as she blocked a couple of kunai Naruto threw back at her. Then she dodged a simple strike from his ninjato.

"... Just a relative." Naruto replied, not really wanting to say who.

"Oh..." Tenten was slightly disappointed. She whipped out a kusarigama and launched the iron ball end towards his legs. Naruto lept upwards and stabbed his ninjato into the ground as the iron ball swung right around. It wrapped tightly around the blade, rendering itself unable to be retrieved. He landed lightly on top of the hilt, balancing in a low crouch. Tenten dropped the weapon and unsealed a katana from one of her scrolls.

Naruto jumped over her in a sommersault when she lunged at him, undoing the bandages around his right arm and revealing an intricate array of seals. He quickly unsealed his other ninjato from the Storage Seal near his elbow and parried a precise slash to his side. Naruto lashed out a kick, but she managed to use her forearm to block it. Nevertheless, she flew back a few meters from the force. Naruto pulled out his other sword from the ground. He deftly reversed his grip with the sword in his left hand.

"Dual-wielder, huh? That some teacher you had." Tenten said, noting the two swords.

"Indeed so." This was one of his strengths, the full extent of his kenjutsu. It was a unique style he used. Fast, precise, almost unpredictable. The main elements that made up this style.

Naruto charged. He swung his right in a downwards strike. Tenten blocked it obove her head with her katana, she barely noticed that he changed the grip of his left again, so that the blade was upright. She managed to twist her body to the right to avoid his incoming thrust and slashed towards his upper arm. Naruto reversed the grip on his right, allowing the blade to block her katana in his off position. They clashed momentarily before jumping away from each other.

They both were breathing hard when Gai called for a temporary break for lunch, although it was 2 o'clock. His team all gathered together.

"Aww man, I'm so hungry. Anyone know a good place to eat? I'd go with Team Ten to Yakiniku, but Choji tends to hog all the meat." Kiba said.

"N-Not really... I-I just eat at h-home." Hinata said looking down a little. They both looked towards Naruto.

"... There's Ichiraku Ramen if you want ramen." he said. His stomach growled quietly. It had been a while since the last time he was there. With Team Eight's own schedule, the Wave mission and his ANBU duties, ramen had been shoved into the back of his mind.

"Sure. Let's go then before Gai-sensei comes after us for being late."

Ichiraku was a small stand at the corner of two streets. It looked rather lonely just sitting there. Naruto led the team there, ignoring the glares coming from everyone around the street. Hinata skittered nervously behind Naruto. Kiba noticed the stares the civilians and he frowned, no doubt wondering why the people were looking at Hinata that way. However when they looked at Naruto, they seemed to glare even harder, but when he looked back at them, they turned away hastily.

'What's up with everyone?' he thought. Team Eight normally didn't travel through the streets since it was Kurenai's idea that they go by rooftop. Kiba didn't know why Hinata looked so relieved when she suggested it. Naruto just reacted with indifference, but he was getting the worst of the glares.

'Naruto,' he thought. He was so hard to read. He maintained an air of apathy around him that unnerved almost everyone around him. He was so quiet at times you'd think he was a ghost and his movement was silent, even to his sharp ears. What disturbed Kiba the most about Naruto was that he knew absolutely nothing about him at all, despite their closeness. Family, where he lived, why he was strong, almost everything besides his name.

However, he did come across an interesting fact about him. After their first day together, Kiba was walking home when Akamaru had whimpered that Naruto's chakra was extremely strong, but somehow managed to suppress it so that he didn't notice it until they were midway into the fight.

"How strong?" Kiba had asked.

"Very. More so than sensei." Akamaru had responded. "But it is still hidden."

More than their sensei? Kurenai was a jonin. Jonin were elite ninja of the village, the best of the best besides ANBU. To say a genin had chakra far stronger than a jonin was ludicrous.

Then again, Naruto wasn't like a genin.

"Ohayo, Teuchi-san." Naruto greeted as he pushed pass the short canvass hanging from the roof. A man wearing a white hat and apron looked up, surprised.

"Naruto-kun! It's been a while since you last came in." Teuchi looked at his teammates that followed behind him. "You got a team now? I remember it was just you and Hatake Kakashi."

"Kakashi?" Kiba asked.

"He did train me. I was sort of an apprentice to him for a while since I didn't have a team." Naruto replied. It was indeed the truth. He sat down on one of the stools. "Miso ramen, please."

"You mean Team Seven's sensei?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. So he was your sensei before Kurenai-sensei." Kiba lamented and sat down as well. "Don't you kind of miss him?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't our decision." Naruto replied. "Are you going to order something?"

"Oh yeah. Uh... Two beef ramen, one is for Akamaru here." Akamaru barked excitedly.

"I-I'll have a miso r-ramen as well." Hinata said softly.

"Sure. Two miso and two beef coming right up." Teuchi said. "Ayame! Two miso and one beef ramen for these three here."

"Customers, father?" A cheerful girl poked her head out from the back of the stand. "Oh, Naruto! You havn't been here in a while. I'll make your usual amount."

"Usual amount?" Kiba questioned.

"... I eat a lot." Kiba raised his eyebrow, but didn't say anything. Hinata also looked curiously at Naruto. In no time at all, four steaming bowls of ramen were placed in front of them.

"Ittkademasu." Naruto said and began to slurp his noodles at an alarming speed. Akamaru jumped onto the table and began to eat. Kiba looked down at his ramen and smiled.

"Ittkademasu." And he dug in too. He perked up at the taste.

'Damn, that's good,' he thought. Kiba looked over to his left to see Hinata smiling as well. Then he looked to where Naruto was and promptly choked.

"You're finished?!" he managed to squeeze out. Naruto's bowl was completely empty and was almost finished his second.

"No. It's only my second bowl. I'm not as fast as Kakashi-sensei when it comes to food." Kiba had no idea what to say. Teuchi smiled.

"I think Kakashi's team was here a few days of ago. They were trying to get under his mask by seeing him eat. Hahaha, in the blink of an eye, it was gone. They were staring really intently at him so they wouldn't miss anything as he was about to pull down his mask. Unfortunately at that moment, some other kids came by and interrupted them. You should've seen the looks on their faces." And he chuckled quietly.

"U-Ummm, Naruto-kun, h-have you e-ever seen u-under Kakashi-san's mask?" Hinata asked.

"... Well... It's just another mask..." Everyone sweatdropped. "It's notoriously hard to get his first mask anyway, so don't even bother with the second one."

"I wonder if Team Seven learned about that. Man! I'd love to see their faces if they ever find out!" Kiba laughed. They all grinned, even Naruto seemed to have a ghost of a smile.

Team Eight got back early. Hinata still couldn't believe Naruto managed to gulp down twenty miso ramen and even pay for it entirely. What kind of allowance did his parents give? [A/N: They don't know that Naruto's an orphan yet.]

Kiba lay down and spread his arms lazily, wincing a little at his rather sore muscles, while Akamaru stretched and curled up beside him. Hinata sat down against a tree and watched Naruto discretely hide a yawn. It wasn't that hard to see that he never seemed to get enough sleep. She seen him training in the middle of the night all the way to the time they meet at. There were dark bags under his eyes he seemed to cover with a minor genjutsu too.

It was only because of her Byakugan that she managed to find that little fact.

Naruto rubbed his eyes. "I'm going to take a nap." he said in a blunt manner and wandered into the nearby forest, away from the grassy clearing. Kiba blinked and decided to go back to cloud watching. Hinata stared at the direction he left in for a few minutes.

'Naruto must've been really tired today.' she thought. 'He has never decided to sleep in the middle of the day...'

Team Nine was next to arrive at the training grounds. Lee was arguing with Neji (albeit a little one-sided) about how one day he would beat him (yet again) while Tenten wore an exasperated expression and attempted to not get involved, which unfortunately failed.

"Tenten!" Lee shouted. "Do you believe that I will win against Neji in an all out spar in a month of hard work!?"

"Ummm... Ah... Well... I don't know." she said meekly trying to avoid taking sides. When they first joined up, she believed without doubt that Neji would win, hands down. Now after seeing Lee improve so much, especially under Gai's tutelage, she really didn't know. Neji glared.

"Tenten, give us a straight answer." he said in a commanding voice. Tenten gulped. You do_ not_ want Hyuuga Neji on your case.

"Errrr... Oh hey! There's Team Eight over there! I'm gonna go warm up with them!" And she raced over to the younger genin, leaving her teammates to their bickering.

"Phew! I swear by the time I become a jonin, I won't have an ounce of sanity left!" Tenten ranted as she approached them. "Hey, let's start warming up. It's not good to start training without a good warm up. Especially with workouts with Gai-sensei." she said much more calmly.

Kiba sighed. He really wanted to rest a little longer, but he got up and started to stretch. Hinata also got up. She couldn't help but worry a little for Naruto.

"Where's your other teammate?" Tenten asked Hinata.

"O-Oh. H-he's sleeping somewhere." Tenten cocked her head in confusion. But then she shrugged and began a light run around the clearing.

Minutes later, everyone gathered around to resume training. Gai had that huge smile full of shiny teeth plastered on his face. Lee was already doing his push-ups, Neji was meditating and Tenten was next to him, absently spinning a kunai around her finger. Sasuke was leaning against a tree, scowling, while Shino stood next to him as well. Ino and Sakura were arguing, like usual, Shikamaru was lying lazily on the ground and Choji was eating his chips.

"Alright my youthful students! Let's do five hundred laps around that lake over at Training Ground Eleven!" Everyone groaned, but they started running anyway. Hinata began a light jog when Gai pulled her over.

"Ah, Hinata," he said in an uncharacteristic low voice. "Could you go find Naruto-kun for me?"

She had no idea why Gai was asking her, but she nodded and went off towards were she last saw him. It didn't take long. Using her Byakugan to pinpoint his location, Hinata jogged to the tree he was sleeping under.

"Naruto-kun..." she whispered quietly to him as she approached his sleeping form. He stirred slightly, but didn't wake. Hinata knelt next to him.

"N-Naruto-kun please w-wake up. I-It's time for t-training." she whispered again. He stirred again, but this time his face morphed into a a deep frown. Suddenly, he started to tremble.

"Naruto-kun?" Hinata said, starting to feel more than a little worried. Was he having a nightmare? Naruto twisted around in discomfort, his face changed into an expression of pain. His breathing was uneven, panting and gasping like every breath he took in hurt. He clutched his head and curled into a ball, as if trying to will the world away. His mouth opened in a silent scream.

"N-Naruto-kun!" Hinata said again, now rather panicked. What was happening? What is going on? Something was just very wrong was what she was sure of. She shook his shoulder hard, scared that if he didn't wake up right now, he would injure himself.

"P-Please wake u-up, N-Naruto-kun! I-It's j-just a d-dream!"

He gasped loudly as his eyes flew open. He scrambled wildly for his kunai holster while he held up his arm as if to fend of an attacker. Hinata jumped back, startled.

"N-Naruto-kun, i-it's me!" He stopped. His arm covered most of his face so that she couldn't see his expression properly. But she could see his one eye clearly. His usual cold and stoic eye was gone, replaced with pain and fear she'd never seen before and one last emotion that would've been undetectable to many eyes.

Hate.

However, it wasn't for her.

Hinata had seen that feeling in so many eyes, it was almost like a constant companion. The only hate filled eyes that she wasn't so bothered by was in Uchiha Sasuke's eyes, but that was only because it wasn't directed at her. Even the hate in his eyes seemed to lessen slightly over time.

"N-Naruto-kun?"

"I'm fine." Was his curt reply. A lie. All the emotion in his eye disappeared and he slowly lowered his arm, revealing his usual stoic face. "Training?"

"H-Hai... We're r-running f-five hundred laps around t-the l-lake at T-Training Ground E-Eleven." Hinata said, unsure of what else to say.

"... Let's go then."

Naruto walked slowly back to HQ. Gai let the rookies go early after seeing how exhausted they were. Heck, Shikamaru couldn't even walk at the end, or he was probably too lazy. Kiba managed to get off the ground and stumble home, but Hinata had twisted her ankle on the last lap around the lake. Only he had seen it.

xxxxx Flashback xxxxx

_"Well my youthful pupils, you are free to go now! Training is over for the day!" Gai shouted. Anyone who could still move properly scrambled away from the training grounds before Gai could change his mind._

_"But Gai-sensei! I've only done a _quarter_ of the daily work today!" Lee sobbed. This got 'are-you-kidding' looks from everyone who was left._

_"Of course you can continue doing the rest of your training! Onwards to the Power of Youth_!"

_"Gai-sensei!"_

_"Lee!"_

_"Gai-sensei!"_

_"Lee!"_

_Naruto ignored the atrocious scene and looked down at Kiba lying on the ground. Akamaru was completely unconscious on his chest._

_"You need help getting home?" he asked._

_"Nah, I've got it." Kiba gasped. He shakily got onto his feet and trudged away, carrying Akamaru under his arm. "See you tomorrow." He tripped and fell flat on his face. Kiba groaned. "Or maybe not..." Nevertheless, he stumbled out of the training grounds. Naruto turned to Hinata sitting on the ground._

_"You need help?" He pushed the earlier scene to the back of his head. She smiled slightly at him._

_"I'm a-alright." Then she got up and started walking away with a noticeable limp. Hinata kept walking and her limp just got worse. She almost fell over, but something soft stopped her._

_"You should've said something when you twisted your ankle." Naruto said as he picked her up in a piggyback. She was surprisingly light._

_"I'm t-tired of being w-weak." she said softly, resting her head on his shoulder. "E-Everyone looks d-down on me. I-I want to p-prove that I'm n-not worthless anymore."_

_"Of course you aren't."_

_"B-But isn't i-it true? I-It's because of m-me that Neji-niisan d-doesn't have his f-father."_

_"No, it's Kumogakure's fault."_

_"You k-know a-about that?"_

_"... Yes and it was a Kumo shinobi who instigated the whole thing."_

_"... And N-Neji-niisan's father payed t-the price." she said mournfully. "I a-am nothing b-but a failure."_

_"Then I'll help you prove them wrong."_

_"H-huh?"_

_"You heard me. We will prove everybody wrong, the Hyuuga clan, the civilians, every shinobi who has ever looked down on you. It doesn't matter about who we are."_

_"B-But-"_

_"You said that you wanted to get stronger. I gonna help you. Dattebayo."_

_Hinata was quiet. No one had ever helped her. Nobody use to care so much about her except for her sensei, Kiba and especially... Naruto. It must've been because they had so much in common._

_"... T-Thank you." she said as she tightened her arms around him slightly and he felt a warm feeling in his heart._

xxxxx End xxxxx

Naruto had dropped her off at her clan's compound. He was almost tempted to just escort her all the way to her room after seeing the cold glare from the Hyuuga by the entrance. However he knew that he was less welcome than Hinata past those wooden doors.

Naruto leaped onto a rooftop. It was best to travel this way. He landed back down into a dark alleyway. There was practically nothing there except for some garbage and an old sewer entrance.

**"Kai."** he said removing the genjutsu that was hiding a Blood Seal on the sewer entrance. Nicking his finger to draw blood, he deactivated the seal. Then he pulled off the lid and jumped down into the tunnel. This was one of the more private entrances to the ANBU Headquarters. He walked through the twisting tunnels and stopped at a deadend. Naruto ran his fingers over the wall, feeling for a carved fire symbol that marked the door to HQ.

**"Kai."** he said as he found it.

A thick metal door appeared before him. A small panel slid open, revealing the mask of a purple haired ANBU.

"Password?" Came a feminine voice.

"Black is what we see, the darkness we live in. We are the shadows of the light."

"Welcome back, Fox." And the door opened. "Looks like you had a rough time. Mission?"

"Just training." Naruto said and stepped through the doorway. The large door slammed shut behind him.

"Oh, right. Heard you got a new team and reassigned as a genin in the regular forces. So, are you still taking missions?"

"Yeah, there aren't enough ANBU to take in all the high level missions." Naruto leaned against the wall behind him.

"Do they know?"

"Who?"

"Your team, I meant."

"It is forbidden to reveal an ANBU's identity to civilians and those below the rank of jonin. Only my sensei knows."

"I see. Anyway, you're taking over Deer's patrol shift. Chakra exhaustion from a mission. You're not too tired, are you?"

"I'm fine." he lied. "I got to get into uniform, though. See you around then..."

"See you around." she said back.

Naruto walked through the narrow hallway, all the way back to the sleeping quarters. After taking a quick shower, he strapped on his uniform, placed his mask over his face and applied a minor genjutsu to increase his height and replace his left eye with a matching blue eye.

It was dusk by the time he finally got out. Patrolling around Konoha was dull, but it beat life threatening situations that came up every few minutes in the missions.

There were many key differences between ANBU and the regular forces. ANBU are always in the shadows, much more secretive than they used to be. When the major drop in village strength after the Tailed Beast attacks, everything was hidden in case of enemy spies and the information leaking out to the other villages. If that happened, war would break out and Konoha was likely to lose from the imbalance of power.

ANBU were to stay completely hidden from public eyes and only appear in emergencies, important events and whenever the situation required it. This was to avoid having anyone being able to review the amount of ANBU that actually existed, making it hard to deduce the strength of the organization. It was Danzo's idea to do so.

Naruto slipped into the shadows. His stealth was pretty good for his age. After all, being a prankster really helped. There weren't any strict patrol routes. Most ANBU simply observed the general population or blended in with the crowd, rarely making any public appearances.

Truth be told, he was early for his shift. That was why he decided to visit a friend. He had gotten special permission from the Hokage to be able to reveal himself to him. Naruto was only fufilling his _promise_.

Uchiha Sasuke was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to fall asleep right then and there, on the soft grass over at the training grounds. But, just like everyone else (not including Gai and Lee), he managed to drag himself home. He took a nice long shower, exchanged his clothes for fresh ones and walked down to a small dock right by the Uchiha clan compound. Sasuke was always here on his free time. It was his place of mourning after the Uchiha Clan Massacre.

He rubbed a sore spot where Neji shut down his tenketsu. Man, that guy was deadly. It took only a few hits and he was down.

Sasuke scowled. He needed to become stronger if he was ever going to kill Itachi. He sat silently at the edge, looking down on his reflection and musing about the past. It was right here, four years ago, when he finally got his father's approval. Before Itachi took everything away.

"I thought I'd find you here." Came a voice. Sasuke turned.

"Ohayo, Fox." he greeted. The masked man nodded. He had spiky blond hair and blue eyes. The man was tall, lean and looked to be in his early twenties. His mask was shaped into a snarling fox with a single orange stripe painted across it.

"Have a good day?" he asked.

"Hn. It was painful." Sasuke replied. Fox was a good friend. He had met him when he was ten years old. At first, Sasuke wanted nothing to do with him, but when Fox had commented on the hatred he held, he had snapped back angrily at him, yelling about how he had no idea about his own pain and would never understand him. But Fox simply stared back and quietly said:

_"I lost my whole family to a monster. I can't deny the hate I feel, but my grandmother used to say 'never let your feelings rule your life, hate above all'. I realized that I would only destroy myself, whatever was left of my life and everyone around me by devoting my life to chasing him down. I tried to live again. Tried to restart my life, fix it up. It was hard, painful. I can't say if I made the better choice, but it hurts less to continue on like this."_

Those words changed his own life. Over time, Fox would come to see him and just talk or show him something. As he visited more, Sasuke began to look up to him. With Fox's encouragement, he didn't alienate his classmates anymore, participated more during class, and finally began to make real friends. Slowly, everything became brighter. His hate for Itachi never faded, but a new meaning came into his life. Fox was right. It was hard at first, but it helped the pain dull over time.

"Maito Gai is a tough trainer." Fox commented.

"Is he ever."

"So, you have a few more days with him, don't you?"

"A few days in hell. At least he trains us more than Kakashi does. You never told me that he could be at least two hours late."

"I didn't want to disappoint you. Anyways, you probably wouldn't have believed me."

"Hn." Sasuke grunted. "You both are really alike."

"I've worked with him on missions. He's had a hard life."

"Having a hard life seems to suck emotion out of you."

"True."

"Speaking of which, there was a fellow genin today that had looked quite a bit like you. Are you-"

"Every relative I know is dead. It's just a coincidence." Fox dismissed.

"... Sorry."

"It's alright." A moment of silence ensued.

"Fox," Sasuke began. "You never told me why you wear the mask of a fox. I thought no one would dare use anything like that since the Kyuubi attack twelve years ago. So many died that day, even the Yondaime. Why?"

Fox was silent for a moment. Sasuke was a little afraid that he had offended him somehow, but then he spoke.

"When bad things happen, people are fearful of everything related to it. Just because it is the mask of a fox doesn't mean it is the fox. People are hateful of it because it looks like the fox, the one killed their loved ones. A monster. In the end, it is a substitute for their hatred. They take out all their anger on it because they cannot take it out on the original. I wear this mask to change that. To show that even the fox is the fox, the mask is the identity of the protector. Do you understand?"

"Sort of." Sasuke replied, frowning. He had a feeling that Fox had told him much more than he intended to. But he didn't really know what to say.

"Good. Besides, I find it suits me. Well, I have to go now. See you later."

"Yeah." Sasuke stared into the water. Fox's visits were always brief, but he really appreciated them. He was the one who had saved him from his pain and loneliness after the deaths of his family. He was the only one he could relate to. He was like a brother.

**End**

Well, end of chapter 9. I'm planning for a new story arc just before the chuunin exams, so if you are one of those people who like that part, sorry but you'll have to wait. Sorry for the long update time. Until next time.


	10. Training Camp, Part 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Author's Note: Chapter 10 now. Update times are slow, but I think chapter lengths are getting a little longer though. This chapter isn't going to be too long and there's no real action. I'm going to be introducing OCs so please don't flip too much. It's all for the sake of this arc which is dedicated to character growth and training. Thanks for the reviews.

To Leaf Ranger: Sorry about portraying Gai that way. I'm gonna try to redeem him in later on in the story. I did consider having him start them off in a not so intense way, but it seemed awkward writing it.

To ichi'nukenin-Namikazemaki: Not quite. I haven't quite worked out all the details yet, but he will find out about Fox/Naruto's identity. It won't be for a long while, though. I think most of Naruto's interaction with Sasuke will be as Fox.

Chapter 10

Training Camp, Part 2

"So, you're leaving for two weeks with Gai and some other fellow genin, right?" A woman in her mid-twenties said. She had long dark hair with purple eyes and wore a simple doctor's coat over a yellow blouse and black squirt. She also wore glasses and her hair was tied back into a ponytail.

"Hai, until our sensei's get back." Naruto said, rubbing his arms in the memory of the amount of push-ups he did earlier that day. He had no idea about whether to be thrilled or filled with dread. "All of the appointments during that time would have to be cancelled."

"Tch." The woman scowled while crossing out a few dates on her notepad. "It's so hard to get regular visits here for you, considering all your duties. Hell, you're still running some B-rank missions in between days! I'd be damned if you get another A-rank or Kami forbid, an S-rank."

"The village needs me."

"Well, the village can wait! They send me patients they want fixed, but can't wait for them to properly heal before sending them out again! REALLY!"

"Yuka-san, it's just a training trip this time." Yuka fumed. Naruto was the one who needed these sessions regularly. She knew that he didn't consider these appointments at the top of his priority list. But really, none of her other patients did either.

Akito Yuka was a psychiatrist, one of the few non-Yamanaka, for many higher ranking shinobi. She would take on mostly jonin and a few ANBU, which gave her a higher authority on classified matters. She'd seen and heard many screwed up tales but Naruto probably had the best of them.

Seriously, what did Danzo hope to accomplish sending a lone boy to a party only for everyone within that building to be eliminated? Guards, guest and servants, involved or not. Sadly, the Sandaime had limited influence on these things and even he agreed, reluctantly, that mission had to be done. Just not in such a... _brutal_ fashion.

Her number one patient, Naruto, _already_ had a torturous past that had to be sorted out. Danzo did not understand that. Hell, she was surprised when Danzo made no objections to his transfer into the regular forces.

Yuka glanced at the running camera beside them. It was part of the sessions and for her to better study her patients reactions. Naruto of course did not like it at all, but he understood its purpose and he did not complain about it.

"Fine. But... Enjoy your time off." she said, now rather quiet. Not many ANBU survive a year doing the most dangerous missions for the village. Plenty leave, unable to handle the immense stress for long periods of time. Hatake Kakashi being one. And he was lucky. All the lucky ones leave. Others die or, rather rarely, breakdown completely. Naruto had no option of permanently leaving. Well not yet anyway. He would have to wait until the village was in better shape. Until then, he was trapped in a twisted fate.

Originally, the Hokage wanted to promote him to jonin. However the civilians and some shinobi's animosity quickly made him reconsider it. Jonin made many public appearances and Naruto certainly did not like parading around as a high-ranking official when others saw it as an outrage. Jonin also had many other responsabilities and duties to the village such as leadership. Being the child he was, he could not fully adapt as a jonin without the experience that came with years of duty to the village and the teamwork they used consistently. There was only one person he was able to coordinate with and he couldn't be around.

Truth be told, it would've been too much of a drastic change from the life he had been leading.

Chuunin was also an option. However Danzo deemed it a place to be too ineffective and he was already above that level of skill. Besides, he liked to keep his weapon in the shadows.

Naruto blinked at her and gave a slight smile before walking out the door. Yuka smiled back at him before shutting off the running camera.  
-

Naruto placed a plastic waterproof cylinder in his bag that contained a storage scroll for his books. It was the third day since his sensei and the other jonin left on an emergency mission. Yesterday, the Hokage informed them that it would be two weeks before they got back, judging from the mission status. Lovely. Everyone else looked like that they wanted to die right there.

Placing two steel square plates for a new project he was going to start, Naruto looked up to find one of his co-workers staring down at him. The newcomer was extremely pale with short black hair, somewhat reminiscent of Sasuke's hair, and wore his ROOT uniform, mask in place.

"Ohayo, 15." Naruto greeted. The only identity the ROOT branch used was numbers. Everyone member had a number. The smaller the number, the higher rank he had. Larger number, lower ranking. Naruto was 9, of course.

"Are you packing for a mission?" Came an emotionless voice. Man, even he couldn't pull off that lack of emotion.

"Well..." It was sort of a longterm mission being on a genin team. "It's a training trip."

"Oh."

"Yeah..." Naruto carefully placed a silver chain with a sharp spearpoint at the end in the bag. He wasn't quite sure why he wanted to take that.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..." It was damn hard to create a conversation with them.

"..."

"Hey, you do any drawings lately?" Strangely, 15 had an interest in art. Naruto took comfort in that knowing at least one of his roommates was not an inhuman killing machine. Besides, he liked to sketch during his free time.

"No." Naruto almost sweatdropped. So much for that...

"I'll get going then."

"Bye." Yeah, a _conversation_. Naruto swung a dark blue travelling cloak around him, picked up his bag and exited the building.

Thankfully, Gai actually decided to depart in a good time in the morning, at nine o'clock. He had his huge, blinding grin plastered on his face while Lee's own smile mirrored his own. Naruto was the last to arrive, though normally he prefered to be early.

"Well, let's get going then." he suggested. But Gai held up a hand.

"Before we go... I offer to you a special suit to amplify your Flames of YOUTH!" he cried out while pulling out several horrendous, green spandex outfits that he and Lee wore. They all blinked, then again and rubbed their eyes and blinked again for good measure. Silence descended amongst them.

Naruto struggled to not react at all, Hinata hid her face behind her hands and the sane half of Team Nine had their eyes twitching uncontrollably. Lee sobbed with _happiness_ and Sakura and Ino hugged each other in fear. Sasuke glared at it as if the intensity of it would burn the spandex. Choji froze in mortification as he was about to chomp down on his last chip and Shikamaru muttered some _unclean_ words along with his favorite catchphrase. Kiba's jaw opened unintentionally and Shino's bugs started to crawl over him. Even they were agitated by it. Surprisingly, Neji was was the first to respond.

"Hell. No." he said through clenched teeth.

"Gai-sensei, you already asked us this question." Tenten deadpanned.

"For you two, not for the rookies!" he replied with the huge grin on his face. "Well, anybody?"

"No thanks!" They all chorused. Nevertheless, Gai's spirit did not dim down at all.

"If anyone changes their mind, come and see me for your youthful spandex." And they set off without another disturbance. But then Gai decided to pick up the pace and everyone groaned. Thankfully, he didn't go inhumanly fast.

"Gai-sensei, if I may ask," Lee said. "Where are we going to train?" Gai flashed a smile and a thumbs-up.

"Up to a village in the mountains, near Takigakure's border. It is rather isolated and is a youthful place to train!"

'The Kuraudo mountains?' Naruto thought. 'There are strange legends about that place... Not to mention that thugs and bandits surround the area...'

Isolated areas were where the ordinary outlaw would roam freely. Places where ninja were rarely present for large amounts of time would have many gangs and criminals hiding out because of the lack of security.

Late afternoon, they really did run into said people. They were lined across the road that headed northwards. Scruffy and crude, they grinned maliciously at the approaching group. Naruto immediately went into high alert, scanning the whole area with his heightened senses. Some were hidden off of the road, hiding in the underbrush to ambush targets. Nobody seemed to have the strong chakra any chunin or jonin had so Naruto assumed that these were just your average thugs.

The group stopped abruptly ten feet away from the blockade. Gai stepped forward.

"What is the meaning of this unyouthful stop?" he asked the men with a low, serious voice. These situations were not to be taken lightly, despite a well-trained chuunin could deal with these guys fairly easily.

"Pay us and we'll let you leave here unscathed." The middle man responded with a sneer. The genin behind Gai all got into an immediate fighting stance. Naruto closed his eyes and concentrated.

'One, two, three, four, five... about a dozen hidden.' he sensed.

"We are shinobi, do not triffle with us." Gai said, attempting to intimidate them. This obviously did not work as the thug sneered again.

"You're only twelve kids and an old man. Not to mention that we've got you outnumbered." he said and the twenty thugs around him nodded. Neji discretly activated his Byakugan.

"They've got another dozen in the woods." he hissed to them quietly enough so that the enemy hadn't been alerted. Naruto almost sighed. He had forgotten that they didn't have an acute ability to sense chakra yet. Gai was about to retort something when Naruto decided to take this matter into his own hands. Things could get bloody without the proper words to say. Not that Gai was dumb or anything, but he sometimes lacked the right thing to say at certain times.

"Let us through, we have you outnumbered." Naruto said in a calm voice. The thug turned to him with the same sneer he gave Gai.

"Are you stupid or something? You don't have an army that could take us down!" Naruto sighed and made a t-shaped hand seal.

**"Multi Shadow Clone jutsu."**

About a hundred clones popped into existence around the genin troop, all crossing their arms. The outlaws gave a surprised gasp and stumbled back. Everyone was stunned at the newfound army Naruto had simply created with a single hand seal. It was an intimidating sight even though they were a little on the short side.

"Call off your men in the woods." he said in a dull tone. "We know you've an ambush prepared for us."

Despite the thug's attempt to compose himself, he still looked stunned at how the odds had shifted so quickly on to the genin's side. He quickly signaled for everyone to back off and retreat.

Naruto sighed in relief. It was nice to go without bloodshed for a while.

"Hey, why don't we go after them?" Kiba said. "We can take them, plus they're criminals! We shouldn't let them get away." Some of the other genin nodded in agreement. Naruto looked to Gai, hoping that he could answer for him. Fortunately, Gai already understood why.

"Now, it is best to avoid conflicts." he began in a serious tone. "It could end in death if you're not careful. Any fight could end the life of a comrade no matter how skilled they are. Also, a conflict can easily escalate beyond your control, normally depending on who you're dealing with. Were it foreign shinobi, it could lead to war."

They all gulped at that revelation. Apparently they got it. The group continued on in silence after that. Due to the fairly fast pace they travelled by, they arrived at a small village only a few kilometers away from the mountains by dusk. However Gai stated that their destination was up those mountains and still a few more hours of running to get there. Everyone groaned quietly, but the mood lightened as they stopped at a nearby inn. All the boys were in one room and the girls in the other.

After cleaning up himself from a full day of travelling, Naruto collapsed onto the futon. The boys were all fast asleep except for him. Naruto feared the nights. Three hours of sleep was a blessing to him as nightmares were constant and very vivid.

It had been like that for three years.

Naruto closed his eyes, allowing the night to take hold of him.  
-

_**"Clone jutsu!"**_

_And out popped another sick, absolutely dead illusion of himself. A five and a half year old Naruto sighed. They'd just learned this jutsu in class a week ago and everyone was able to create at least one half decent clone._

_Nobody's were like Naruto's clones._

_**"Clone jutsu!"**_ _he screamed out after forming the hand seals. And out came another dead clone. He facefaulted at his unsuccessful attempt and proceeded to knock himself silly on the nearby tree. He spent hours practicing it and still got nowhere!_

_"Yo, gaki!" A voice rang out. Naruto turned around and saw a boy with crimson red hair and bright green eyes. He looked to be about fourteen years old and wore a simple white t-shirt with a red swirl at the front and black sweatpants. "Need any help?"_

_"Oh, yes please! This Clone jutsu doesn't work! Can you please tell me I'm doing wrong?" The redhead winced slightly at his loud voice._

_"Sure, show me." Naruto gulped, forming the hand seals, expelling his chakra like the instructors told him to and..._

_**"Clone jutsu!"** Naruto opened one eye and promptly collapsed out of sheer exasperation more than exhaustion. The clone was dead again._

_"NOOOO! I swear that jutsu is cuuuurrrsed, dattebayo!" The redhead eyed him with amusement._

_"Alright gaki, let's see what you did here..." he said and waved his hand through the illusion. Well, supposed illusion. He raised his eyebrow. The clone actually felt like liquid! "Hey gaki, your clone's supposed to be an image."_

_"I know! But it always comes out like that no matter how much chakra I use!" The redhead frowned. No matter how much chakra I use? "You know, it just seems to be getting worse, dattebayo!"_

_He ran his hand through the clone again. A sudden thought hit him._

_"Gaki, try it again, but use as much chakra as possible." Naruto nodded and grinned._

_**"Clone jutsu!"** The redhead almost gasped as chakra swirled around the boy. The clone popped out dead, yet again. This did not disappoint Naruto, though._

_"So... How'd I do?"_

_The redhead did not reply and examined his clone. Then he tried to pick it up. To his surprise and slight disgust, he did. The clone was actually a large glob of chakra. Hell, it was purely chakra! If his assumptions were right, this kid was almost using an A-rank jutsu!_

_"Gaki... Errr, how do I put this..." he paused. Naruto nervously rocked on his heels. What was wrong? "Okay, you're... overloading the jutsu with chakra."_

_"Overloading the jutsu?" Naruto asked, testing the word. "What do you mean?"_

_The redhead sighed, reminding himself that he was talking to a five year old kid._

_"It means that you're putting to much chakra into the jutsu. But it seems pretty natural that you're emitting this much chakra," he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "And you aren't even tired yet. I tell you what, I'm going to teach a better jutsu."_

_"Really!? REALLY!?" Naruto excitedly shouted._

_"Woah, settle down kid. I think it would take far too long to improve your chakra control for that little E-rank jutsu. So I'm going to show you a better jutsu."_

_"What's it called?"_

_"It's called... The Shadow Clone jutsu..."  
-_

Naruto groaned slightly at the dim light that shined down on his eyes. He sat up slowly and looked at the nearby clock. 5:45, it read, he had actually slept through the whole night. Gai was beginning to stir. It wouldn't be long be fore they headed out again. He rubbed his eye absentmindedly. It was wet.

'What... No, it's tears...'

**"Calm yourself, kit."** Kurama's voice said in his head.** "Just a memory."**

Naruto quickly wiped the rest of it away before anyone noticed. He snapped on his eyepiece and put on a clean shirt. By the time everyone was up, he was ready to go.

"Gai-sensei, I'm gonna check the girls." he said before exiting into the hallway of the inn. Naruto knocked on the door.

"Who i-is it?" A soft voice answered through the door.

"It's me, Naruto."

"Oh. I'll b-be right t-there." The door swung open, revealing a readily dressed Hinata.

"Just checking if you're ready."

"D-Don't worry, we'll b-be out i-in a minute. S-Sakura-san is having a-" However at that moment, a certain pink haired girl appeared out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel.

"Hey Hinata, I was just wondering-" She froze up, seeing that they had company. More importantly, male company. Naruto's well honed instincts for dealing with bad tempered girls immediately flared up, warning imminent danger. Before he could react, Sakura shouted: "You PERVERT!"

And then almost out of nowhere, a comb came flying out and smacked Naruto full on the face.

"Ow."

"Get out!" And what he quickly backed away from the doorway as a dismayed Hinata attempted to calm her down.

"I'll be back later, Hinata-chan."

'Why do woman have to be so crazy?' Naruto wondered.  
-

A few hours later, the whole troop found themselves at the beginning of a steep mountain path. Sakura had avoided looking at Naruto ever since that little incident earlier that day. However, she did mumble her apologies under her breath. Naruto heard her anyways.

The path was rather steep and more than a few times did one of the genin slip and nearly take a hard tumble down. Thankfully, Gai caught them every time, which upped the opinions on the eccentric green man. The tree climbing technique really helped here. The Rookies stumbled constantly, having little experience in utilizing that level of chakra control for long periods of time. Team Nine fared better, since they were a year ahead of the rest.

Gai called for a water break two hours before noon, stating that they were almost there. Everyone practically collapsed besides Lee (who was still jumping around energetically), Neji (who simply sat down in a much more graceful manner) and Naruto (who was thankful for his large chakra reserves and great stamina). Naruto leaned against the rocky cliff, catching his breath when Hinata walked up to him.

"N-Naruto-kun, I-I want t-to t-talk to y-you a-about something." He noticed that she was rather agitated as her stuttering had increased. He signaled Gai with the ANBU sign language and led her away from the resting genin. Once they were out of hearing range, he put a hand on her shoulder.

"What did you want to talk about?" he asked.

"U-Ummm, I just w-wanted to talk a-about my seal..."

"What about it?"

"I-I think... S-Something's wrong. My c-chakra control has b-been worse a-and sometimes s-strange bursts o-of chakra come around a-and cause p-pain."

Naruto feared the worst. Her seal was already weakening. Ever since the Wave mission and the large outburst of chakra she managed to draw upon, he noticed that the seal formula's symbols became less precise on her stomach. It seems that some chakra had leaked through, though it was small bursts of chakra at random times. Due to her lack of exposure to it over the years, her chakra system almost completely rejects the foreign.

Naruto guided her away from the sight of the others and pointed to a nearby rock.

"Sit down." Hinata sat down on the rock without a word. Her fingers were twiddling together, revealing her anxiety. Naruto knelt in front of her. He gestured for her to lift up her shirt so he could see the seal. She did so with a rather furious blush and somehow got redder when he placed a hand on the seal.

'No thoughts like that...' she silently chided herself as she fought to keep the slightly nauseous feeling in her mind she usually got when she was very embarrassed or just extremely nervous.

Chakra emitted from the palm of Naruto's hand. Hinata inhaled sharply from the alien-like feeling of his chakra searching through the seal. He frowned slightly.

'It's just like I thought. The outer seal would've been fine for a couple more years but the recent breach... It has only accelerated the deterioration process. Should the outer seal fail, the main seal would only remain for a short duration before collapsing under the extra strain without the outer seal. I should get my shadow clones working on a new seal. Unfortunately, I've never had to seal something with such a huge chakra density...'

"Hinata, I'm afraid your seal is weakening." She blinked at this and fear crept into her eyes.

"W-What e-exactly do y-you m-mean?" she stuttered out nervously.

"It means that the Nanabi could be released back into the world if your seal fails. Don't worry, you still have time before that happens." Hinata gulped and turned way paler than she was already despite his reassurance.

"A-Ano..." she tried to say but was interrupted by the cry of a bird. Naruto looked upwards.

"A messenger hawk." Then he whistled in a low tone and held out his arm. The bird screeched again and landed on his arm. Naruto untied the small scroll on the bird's leg and proceeded to read it. Hinata saw his brow furrow slightly, indicating something important in the message. "We should get going." he said after a while, rolling up the scroll.

She nodded, but she knew definitely that something was up.  
-

"Yosh! Let's get going now!" Gai yelled out after the fifteen minute break was up. The genin stood shakily to their feet, moaning about sore legs. He spotted an unsettled Naruto returning with an equally anxious Hinata in tow. What happened?

"Gai-sensei," came his voice. He was holding out a scroll in his hands. "A message came."

"Ah, thank you Naruto-kun." And he unfurled the message. Gai frowned. A sense of foreboding fell upon him despite the reassurances it said in the scroll.

_Intelligence Report 286a, Northern border, Section 3:_

_Four unidentified shinobi and two unidentified kunoichi have entered through the border to the Sound. No forehead protector shown._

_Kunoichi 1: Short blond hair, green eyes, black travelling cloak, carrying a whip, around 5'6ft_

_Kunoichi 2: Long dark brown hair in high ponytail, simple silver earings, silver eyes, black travelling cloak, katana on her back, around 5'1ft_

_Shinobi 1: Silver eyes, black bandana over his head, short light brown hair, black travelling cloak, two tanto strapped to his back, around 5'9ft,_

_Shinobi 2: Wild spiky black hair, dark blue eyes, heavy build, steel gauntlets, black travelling cloak, around 6'2ft_

_Shinobi 3: Light brown hair, silver eyes, round glasses, freckles, small, agile build, black travelling cloak, carries modified crossbow, 5'0ft_

_Shinobi 4: Violet hair in a short ponytail, stubble, golden eyes, large stocky build, carries iron staff, around 5'10, believed to be the leader_

_Objective: unknown_

_Destination: Westwards_

_Two teams of chunnin will be dispatched to investigate. All teams in the northwestern region to be on high alert._

Foreboding indeed.

End  
-

There you go. Next chapter will focus on developping their skills and training. I still don't know about pairings yet. Until next time.


	11. Enemies and Settling In

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Author's Note: Thank you very much for reviewing. It has been the most reviews I've had so far since posting a chapter. Thank you ver much again, I really appreciate them. Here's chapter 11 guys. Sorry about updating times getting longer and longer but I think a good sized chapter a month would be regular now. This one focuses much more on Naruto and Hinata hardly appears, it wasn't really my intention, but I decided to focus more of the Naruto and Hinata interaction in the next chapter or so, since this focuses on giving detail about the story arc and Naruto's character.

One of you wrote about Naruto helping Sasuke. I just want to clarify that he's not really helping Sasuke by training him as Fox, but just keeping him company and giving advice to him. Sasuke will be unlikely to turn bad with Naruto/Fox's influence.

I know Danzo's influence may be a little too much in this story but he can be considered almost a co-Kage due to him working alongside the Hokage during the abysmal state of the village after the Nanabi.

Chapter 11  
Enemies and Settling In

"We're here!"

Naruto gaped at the view. It was beautiful.

Everyone else seemed stunned at it as well. They were high up looking over the ledge. It was cold and windy like any other mountain. Down below was a small valley surrounded by a couple other mountains but never fully enclosed. It had luscious green forests and a small river running across it, coming from a waterfall that fell from halfway from where the genin were and the valley. The valley itself was actually still quite high up. A small village was located right by the running river and past the unobscured part of the valley, there were endless expanses of trees with more mountains in the far of distance and a few rock formations as well.

"Wow..." Ino breathed.

"Incredible." Sakura said.

"Indeed," Gai's booming voice said as well. "I once went on a mission to this place and I never forgot it's beauty." He paused, lowering his voice as if he was lamenting on something. "Nor it's spiritual affinity..." Everyone stared at him. Spiritual affinity?

"Anyways, let's get going! We have a long way down to go!"  
-

"Hey! Beef jerky right over there!"

"Kiba, we're here to get food that'll last for two whole weeks and we only have enough money to last for three days or five if we ration it. We have to chose carefully."

"Yeah, but it's meat and meat has good protein!" Naruto sighed, it sort of made sense. [ A/N: I honestly don't know if it's good food for survival.]

"Fine."

"Alright!"

Meanwhile...

"Choji! Lay off the chips."

"B-But Ino-"

"You can't be eating chips all the time! Besides, you'd finish them the next day with the amount we can buy!"

"Oh fine." he sulked. It wasn't often when he did, which made Shikamaru nervous.

Team Eight and Team Ten moved to the checkout counter and placed their groceries on it. The woman attending to the cash register looked curiously at them.

"Are you kids from out of town?" she asked as she began to put the food into paper bags.

"Yep." Kiba replied for them.

"Huh. Are you visiting the Fortuneteller? Many wanderers and travellers come to this town to see him."

"The Fortuneteller?"

"He's something of a hermit, but he's got this special talent as if he could read into your own soul. All sorts of people come to learn their fortunes since they're quite accurate. It makes him rather renowned around the area."

"Interesting," Kiba turned to his fellow. "What do you guys think?"

"It would be troublesome." Was Shikamaru's reply.

"You always say that!" Ino scolded as she picked up two of the bags.

"How accurate are his predictions?" Naruto asked, gathering the rest. He handed one of the bags to Hinata.

"Very. Not always in terms of fortelling events that will happen, but more like the course of your own life. Sometimes, he doesn't predict anything. In fact, I saw him once for a man I loved. I use to put on make up, dress up and flirt around with other guys to get his attention. He never once looked at me. In the end, the Fortuneteller simply gave me advice by telling me to befriend him, get to know him properly and let him know me properly. Show him my real self and let him decide about what he really thinks of me. In three years, we married."

"Wow, that's a lovely story." Ino commented.

"Indeed, he's a wise man. I owe him a lot." The woman replied.

"U-Um... Where d-does he live?" Hinata asked.

"On the outskirts of the town. You kids probably should go see him."

"Thanks for the advice." Choji said.

They said their goodbyes and headed out onto the path running through the small town of Senkensha (meaning 'seer'). It was a quiet town, most people were friendly with around a few hundred inhabitants. Being a somewhat isolated place, shinobi were a rarity around the area which led to them being completely unknown or stared at in awe at the sight of their forehead protectors.

They hadn't even walked for a minute before Naruto felt a presence. Suddenly as they rounded the corner of a street, a young man came running out of an alley and smacked right into Naruto

"Ah! I'm so sorry!" The guy said, rather panicked. He got up quickly and offered out his hand to the surprised blond boy. He had short light brown hair, black round glasses and had freckles plastered around his face. He wore a black t-shirt, dark blue sweatpants and bandages around his arms. However, his most unnerving feature was his bright silver eyes."Are you alright?"

Naruto blinked at the sudden confrontation. The new guy carried himself with a certain swiftness, making his movements efficient and without waste like a shinobi. Something was off, better to play it safe. So he laughed.

"No, no. It's alright, it was just an accident, dattebayo." He grabbed the guy's outstretched hand and pulled himself up. Naruto could feel the hidden tension in the young man's muscles. He plastered a brilliant smile on his face. "Heh heh, there've been worst things that happen to me. Name's Kintaro."

"Takashi." He flashed his own smile. Naruto could feel his companions gaping stares at his one-eighty degree personality flip. Suddenly, he felt another presence, it was slightly agitated. A woman ran up behind Takashi.

"What the hell, Takashi?! You-" she stopped in mid-sentence, realizing that they had company. "Eh?"

She had long brown hair tied up in a high ponytail and was a few shades darker than Takashi's. She wore a brown vest and a red t-shirt underneath along with black capri's. A katana lay sheathed on her back and she had the same silver eyes as the young man next to her. They both didn't have their forehead protectors.

"Ohayo," Naruto said as he waved at the newcomer. Something was slightly off about their chakra levels, as they were slightly higher than a regular civilian's. Suppressed chakra signature?

"Er... Ohayo?" Naruto could tell that he had unnerved her a little. The two were very tense about something, definitely suspicious. The woman especially. She had the same eyes as the villagers at Konoha had for him. Best to play it smart.

"Wow! You guys look strong! Are you shinobi?" Naruto asked, pointing at the woman's katana. An innocent question for normally anyone. They tensed slightly again. However it seemed to be a much more sensitive question. Takashi hesitated.

"Uh, yeah! We are. We're just passing through here."

"Cool! It's not everyday you see another country's shinobi travel through here, dattebayo! Where you from?"

"Iwagakure." Less hesitation, likely true. Are they here for something or passing through like they said? "Aren't you guys from Konohagakure?" Takashi asked, pointing at their forehead protectors.

"Yup, we're just visiting as well."

"Oh." This also seemed to unnerve him as well.

"Hey, are you guys here to see the Fortuneteller?"

"No no, just passing through."

"Takashi, let's get going." The woman interjected as she tugged on his arm.

"Er, bye, Kintaro." he said as the woman dragged him away.

"See ya, Takashi!" Naruto waved. As soon as they were out of sight, he dropped his cheerful facade and his personality took another one-eighty degree flip back to his stoic self. Kiba unfroze at the immensely strange change from his teammate.

"Naruto. What. The. Freakin'. Hell. Was. That. All. About?" Oops. It seemed that he spooked them quite a bit. Hinata blinked at him, while Choji and Ino stared at him strangely. Shikamaru still had a lazy expression, but a look of knowing in his eyes.

'What would you expect? He's a Nara.' Naruto thought.

"Geniuses, the whole lot of them..." Kurama's voice rumbled in his head. It was never an invasive feeling, but something that Naruto took comfort in hearing on his loneliest days.

"Something was up about them. Be on guard. We should also inform Gai-sensei just in case." Ino made a skeptical face, but didn't question it as Shikamaru seemed to agree as well. It was an unspoken rule with Team Ten that Shikamaru had over 99% accuracy on being right about these things. Hinata and Kiba constantly put their own trust in Naruto since he was the most experienced of them besides their sensei, making him team leader when she wasn't around. Akamaru, who was on Kiba's head, whimpered a little.

"Huh, Akamaru said that they got a funny smell on them." Kiba translated.

"We should go back to Gai-sensei." Choji suggested opening a pack of chips. "They should have the campsite up by now."  
-

Naruto sighed as he spotted Ino and Sakura arguing over Sasuke (who was sadly caught in the middle) again. Each seperate team had brought their own tent to share and Naruto had just finished pitching up his. He felt a little apprehensive about using a tent. He was used to sleeping on the cold, hard ground through storm, rain, sun, whatever without anything that could tangle him up if he had to get up fast.

'Stop it. It's not like you're trying to take a catnap when enemy ninja are out to get you.' He scolded himself inwardly.

Hinata and Choji were making a fire and Kiba and Shikamaru were talking to Gai about their meeting with the strangers in town. Figuring that he had some free time, Naruto jumped up to a high branch in the tree overlooking the small campsite and sat down. Gai had decided to camp out in the fields a few kilometers from the town since staying at the local inn would be fairly expensive for two weeks. Besides, shinobi normally don't have the luxary of sleeping in a nice room. Camping was a good way to at least get somewhat used to sleeping outside.

Naruto pulled out the small black book he always carried in his standard equipment pouch he wore on his hip. Some would compare to how often he always kept his own bingo book on his self to how Kakashi carried his own Icha Icha Paradise book.

Naruto sometimes wondered why Kakashi carried a useless perverted book to a more useful book like one that held good info on enemies of the village.

However it sounded paranoid.

Maybe he was paranoid.

'You can't be too careful...' Naruto thought, unconciously defending the fact.

Naruto didn't bother to disguise his book again. So far, he was out of sight of normal eyes. Well, he hoped Neji (who was training out in the woods with his teammates) or Hinata would notice his little book full of restricted stats. Storing these thoughts in the back of his head, he began his search for the shinobi. There was a 95% chance that they were missing-nin. Shinobi were proud to wear they're village symbol and there was hardly one who didn't wear their forehead protector. Naruto flipped through the pages, looking for the name Takashi.

'Hmmmm... Four Takashi's. Watanabe Takashi, twenty-seven... No he was a little younger than that. Rokuto Takashi, twenty-two, black hair, solid build... Nope. They weren't emitting chakra for any jutsu as it was carefully suppressed. Those two were likely using their actual appearance. Ah, here.'

_Name: Yosuke Takashi_

_Alias: Crackshot _(local nickname)

_Affiliation:_ _Iwagakure_ (formerly)

_Rank:_ _High B-rank, former chuunin_

_Age: 20_

_Description: Silver eyes, light brown hair, small and agile build, freckles across his face, glasses, 5ft tall, forehead protector is discarded, carries modified crossbow,_

_Jutsu: A-rank Chameleon jutsu, great skill in genjutsu, high stealth skill, adept in ninjutsu and taijutsu, no elemental jutsu, utilises crossbow heavily in long range combat, keen chakra sensory_

_Specialization: Stealth specialist, espionage, assassination, combat support, reconaissance, chakra sensor_

_Bounty: 300 000 ryo_

_Wanted by: All _(missing-nin are to be taken to the nearest bounty office)

_Family:_  
_-Yosuke Takahiro (elder brother) missing-nin_  
_-Yosuke Kumiko (elder sister) missing-nin_  
_-Yosuke Umi (mother) deceased_  
_-Yosuke Hiroto (father) deceased_

_Additional notes: Almost promoted to tokubetsu jonin before defection. Reason is likely becoming unstatisfied with the peaceful state of affairs with Konohagakure along with siblings. Most mellow of his siblings._

A picture showed Takashi's ninja registration photo taken two years ago. He looked just the way he had appeared outside the grocery store, save for the different clothes.

'Iwa... Unstatisfied... They probably left because of revenge, not wanting to ally themselves with the village that wouldn't comply with their wishes. I can bet it's about their parents too... So Yosuke Takahiro and Yosuke Kumiko to check next...' Naruto flipped to the next page. Luckily, family members seemed to be placed close to each other.

_Name: Yosuke Kumiko_

_Alias: Swift Blade_ (local nickname)

_Affiliation: Iwagakure_ (formerly)

_Rank:_ _Low A-rank, former tokubetsu jonin_

_Age:_ _23_

_Description: Dark long brown hair, normally tied up, silver eyes, carries a katana with a blue handle, known to wear silver earings, 5'1 ft._

_Jutsu: Heavily utilises kenjutsu, profficient in lightning jutsu and earth jutsu, kenjutsu style includes the usage of lightning chakra to enhance blade speed to immense amounts, mild skill in genjutsu, known to poison sword_

_Specialization: Close combat, assault, kenjutsu specialist, assassination_

_Bounty: 550 000 ryo_

_Wanted by: All _(missing-nin are to be taken to the nearest bounty office)

_Family:_  
_-Yosuke Takahiro (elder brother) missing-nin  
-Yosuke Takashi (younger brother) missing-nin  
-Yosuke Umi (mother) deceased  
-Yosuke Hiroto (father) deceased_

_Additional notes:_ _Hot-headed, stubborn and impulsive. Defected along with her brothers, notably unhappy with the peaceful terms with Konohagakure._

The first thing that came to mind was 'that girl is dangerous' in a not so seductive way. An encounter with her could be painful, a lot of encounters with those kinds of girls end in bloodshed. Especially if you were a pervert.

Luckily or rather unluckily, his sister/cousin quite literally beated it out of him.

_Name: Yosuke Takahiro_

_Alias: Hawk (former ANBU codename), Mr. Obsesssive (local nickname)_

_Affiliation: Iwagakure (formerly)_

_Rank: A-rank, former ANBU_

_Age: 25_

_Description: Normally wears a black bandana over his head, light brown shaggy hair, silver eyes, medium build, 5'9ft, carries two identical tanto_

_Jutsu: Skilled in fire, wind and earth jutsu, kenjutsu style utilises two tanto, high speed, stamina and strength, skilled in taijutsu and close combat,_

_Specialization: Mid and close quarters combat, assault, offensive combat, ninjutsu specialist_

_Bounty: 1 000 000 ryo_

_Wanted by: All (missing-nin are to be taken to the nearest bounty office)_

_Family:_  
_-Yousuke Takashi (younger brother) missing-nin_  
_-Yosuke Kumiko (younger sister) missing-nin_  
_-Yosuke Umi (mother) deceased_  
_-Yousuke Hiroto (father) deceased_

_Additional notes: Has had a deep loathing for Konohagakure and especially for the Yellow Flash, the largest reason for defection. Also is likely the main reason for the defection of his younger siblings._

'It seems that he was the most dangerous of the Yousuke family. If he knew I was around, he'd likely charge for me first. He reminds me a bit of Sasuke...' That thought disturbed him. He decide right then and there that he would avoid Takahiro at all cost. It would not do to have a large scale battle on his hands between eleven genin, one jonin and one ANBU Black Op and two A-rank ninja and B-ranked younger brother.

Then suddenly, a dangerous thought hit him.

'The descriptions matched the intel report we got earlier... Then that means that we have to deal with three more missing-nin... Ah-'

And what followed next was a string of profanity so bad that just the f-word was a major understatement. [A/N: I don't like putting a whole lot of swear words in my writing. Only occasionally.]

Finally his head cleared all the junk that filled his head at that minute with one final thought lingering.

'I thought that being a genin was suppose to be way easier...'  
-

Takashi lay on his sleeping bag with his own mind filled with questions from the strange encounter today. He was so sure that he had picked up jonin level chakra, but it then repressed itself to a normal chuunin's as he smacked himself into the boy as he attempting to locate the intense signal.

'That boy was no ordinary child...'

Kintaro, the name the boy gave him. Takashi had a strange feeling about the boy the moment he got up and looked at him for the first time. The first thing he observed were the eyes. It was the most important rule he had learned when his sensei began to teach him about body language and reading one's self.

_"Look into the man's eyes, Takashi. A well trained or experienced ninja can easily hide his feelings through a stony mask plastered to his face, but the eyes are always visible." Like the very naive and rookie genin he was, he responded with:_

_"Er... What the heck do you mean, sensei?" The man sighed._

_"What I mean in the more literal sense is that anyone can keep their facial expressions hidden, but not so easily in their eyes. They always reflect their emotions. You'll understand one day." Then he looked over to the approaching jonin._

_"Perhaps a day too soon..."_

It was day his brother lost his smile and soon after, his sister became full of bitterness. He was seven years old that day, having being placed with a jonin sensei early on due to his father being constantly away on the front lines along with his older brother and his sister ran plenty of low ranked missions away from Iwa, all vital to the war.

The Third Shinobi War. The very thing that tore his family apart. He never truly experienced it himself, being still a young boy. All he did was run D-ranks with his team, maintaining the slowly emptying village. He never watched his father die by the hand of the Yellow Flash like his brother nor did he ever feel guilty about being the sole survivor of his team when they were ambushed and massacred by Konoha shinobi like his sister.

The only thing he ever did see was Konoha overunning the village defenses. Even then there was little killing with Iwa surrendering within five minutes of their arrival. Takahiro wanted to keep fighting along with Kumiko, saying that this wasn't what their comrades died for.

Ten years later, they left. Takashi followed them, unwilling to give up the last of family.

When Takashi had looked into Kintaro's eyes, he felt like he was looking into his siblings' eyes. Scarred by bloodshed, experienced by hardship, hate by death, older than they should ever be. The boy had been through much more than his companions.

"Takash-kun," His sister's voice rang out beside him. "Weren't you going to help me get dinner ready?"

"Right, Kumiko-neechan." he replied. Picking himself up from ground, Takashi quickly unsealed a pot from a storage scroll in his bag and proceeded to add some wood to the small fire at the center of the cavern they were residing in.

"Hey, Takashi."

"Yes, neechan?"

"What do you think of that kid back there at the market?"

"Eh? Oh, that kid. He's alright, being a young n' all."

"Tch. That kind of disposition gets people killed. He's supposed to be a shinobi, a killer, not a child." she said in a bitter tone.

"They're the generation that has never seen war." Takashi said, feeling the need to defend them a little, nonetheless.

"So?"

"They don't understand." he replied with an exasperated tone. "Kids can still be kids. They don't have to waste their childhood on the battlefield."

"But-"

"What's up." A new voice came from the mouth of the cave.

"Oh, Takahiro-niisan."

"Hey Takashi-kun, Kumiko-chan." Takahiro was a fairly tall young man with a medium build. He had the same silver eyes as his siblings and the same shaggy hair as his brother under a black bandana he wore on top of his head. He wore light, but tough shoes with bandages that covered his calves, a dark grey vest with a simple blue t-shirt underneath and beige shorts. His two tantos were strapped to his back in a x-formation. "Has Shouta and Yoshiko returned yet?"

"Nope, but Ryouichi is at the back. No doubt wondering about some new shinobi around the area." Kumiko replied.

"New shinobi?"

"Yeah, some newbie kids really. They wouldn't be a problem since they're likely just genin judging be their looks. One of them looked like the Yellow Flash." Takashi cringed inwardly from his sister's deliberate slip. The Yellow Flash was something you do not bring up around Takahiro.

"And?" Takahiro's voice was deadly quiet.

"Well... They left after that."

"You should have killed them."

"And no doubt cause a Hidden Village manhunt for us." Takashi commented. His brother turned his full attention towards him.

"So? They're the ones who took our comrades away, not to mention our parents. They deserve this."

"And what about them? We've all suffered on both sides. The best thing to hope is that the next generation will not create the next Shinobi War." he countered. Takahiro sneered. This argument was not uncommon between the two brothers, in fact, it had been a very frequent occurence with even Kumiko often siding with Takahiro.

"You're such an idealist. All our suffering will end when Konoha is gone." Takashi stood up with his eyes blazing with anger.

"You're a dillusional _bastard_." he spat. Then he stormed out into the night, not bothering to look back.  
-

_His footsteps trailed across the ground as silently as he could as he rushed to the house. Blood covered him everywhere, so much that it made his hair look as red as his cousins. The kills were messy, but no one had noticed his escape until they were staring down at their pooling blood on the ground. He paused as he rested his hand on the doorknob._

_'Is he still alive? He has to be. He must be.' He felt dread creep through his body despite his best efforts to reassure himself. The door clicked open without hesitation. He quietly crept to the kitchen._

_"Kukuku..." An unforgettable laugh that made his insides boil._

_The Snake stood with his back turned to him, with an assistant next to him. On the counter in front of them lay a redheaded small boy._

_Otouto._

_The Snake chuckled again, turning towards him._

_"I'm afraid you're too late Naruto. His heart just stopped not a minute ago."_

Naruto woke with a sharp gasp and immediately clamped his teeth shut on his arm. A quietly muffled scream escaped as tears threatened to fall.

It was the worst of them all, and the most frequent. Another nightmare of a memory.

He scrambled out of the tent, waking none of his teammates who were sharing the same tent. Naruto could taste blood in his mouth, he must've bitten his tongue. He wandered through the forest, unsure of his destination with his hazy mind. Naruto didn't care where he went, along as it would take him far away from reality and his horrors.

It wasn't long before he stumbled into a clearing right up against the mountains where they came down from. In front of him was a small lake and a waterfall that cascaded down onto its surface with the moon perfectly reflected on the shimmering mirror. The eerie glow from the lake gave it a serene feeling, giving off an aura of peace and acceptance.

'Was this what Gai-sensei was talking about?' Naruto wondered as he knelt down to the water and rinsed out the blood in his mouth. He was so entranced by the scene, he almost didn't notice the sharp snapping of a twig behind him.

Naruto swiveled around his hand placed on his right thigh were his kunai holster should've been. However he had taken it off before going to sleep.

"Hold it, youngster." A hoarse voice pierced through the silence. "No need to get riled up. I'm just a simple old man on a simple walk on a simple night."

"Who are you?" Naruto asked in a ready stance, facing the forest.

"Me? Nobody notable, even though the townspeople of Senkensha call me the Fortuneteller. My name is Satoro though. Not many people do remember..." And he walked out of the shadows of the trees, in front of the shinobi. The many wrinkles over his skin gave away his old age, along with his pure white beard. The old man was bald and his eyes were like slits, making them seem like they were closed. Satoro wore a simple brown kimono, black sandals and held a wooden staff in his right hand, giving him an image of a wise hermit.

"So you're the Fortuneteller."

"Indeed so as the people call me. I'm just a senile, old man who likes to watch the moon over this lake. It is a special place." Naruto frowned. What was so special here? Power? Fortune? Knowledge?

"None of that, boy." Satoro said suddenly as if he could read his thoughts. "This place reveals truth."

"Truth?" What did he mean? The old man chuckled and sat down, cross-legged on the soft grass, a few meters away from him.

"See for yourself." And he gestured towards the shimmering surface of the lake. Naruto took a step towards the lake, without looking away from the man despite the fact that his instincts were telling that the old geezer was no danger at all.

Now closer to the edge of the water, Naruto peered over only to see himself staring back at him. However, what made him immediately fall onto his back in sheer shock was that his image was of a nine year old blond boy. Even if it was only a glimpse, he saw the same foxy smile he used to wear almost constantly, the same bright blue eyes that had shown with happiness, the same easygoing posture he had held, the same relaxed expression he once had before everything went to hell.

He was looking at his childhood self.

"When the moon shines down upon this lake, it shows things about yourself covered by lies in its reflections. Things you try to deny or perhaps never knew. It reveals your soul. I don't know how this place came to be, but strong chakra runs through here, changing the enviroment. I spent my whole childhood here in this valley and came here more than regularily. I believe I picked up a few traits here as well, like its ability to have insight into one's self. You shinobi may call it a blood line trait or kekkei genkai, but I know it's not. Just an abnormal occurence."

Naruto said nothing and looked back at his happy go lucky self. He reached out to touch it, but the moment his finger made contact with the water, the image changed under the ripples. Now he was in his ANBU gear, in a ready stance, soaked in blood with one of his ninjato drawn. His intense right blue eye stared back coldly and his Sharingan, visible behind the mask, analyzed him for weakness.

"Like I said, this lake reveals yourself. It's not just one image, there are many ways to show who you are. You cannot be represented by a single fact. It is one thing I can say that is impossible. Right now I can see both sides of yourself hidden away through that stoic mask you wear in front of everyone. You were naturally dominated by your Light-self or the better part of your personality when you were younger. Happy, mischievous, full of energy. You never let the villager's hate shake you down or let yourself hate them back, despite feeling that the world was against you. They tried to ignore you, but you made them pay attention to you through numerous pranks. You believed you would prevail if continued to persevere. You believed that if you continued on and reach your former dream of Hokage, you would rise above their hate and earn their respect instead. Of course if you didn't, you would live under their shadows and suffer.

"Your Dark-self lingered in you, created by the negative emotions you felt with the prejudice against you and by your lonely earlier years. The desire for revenge and the feelings of hate. For many years, it lay dormant, especially when you were adopted. However, It wasn't until a incident which allowed your darker side to grow and eventually you could no longer deny that it existed. Both of yourselves began to mix and fight, then eventually settle on the middle ground..." And Satoro pointed at him. "And the self you are is the result."

Naruto eyes widened at the man's insight. He never thought that when the old man had said he could through into someone's soul, he meant by completely knowing how one thought or operated.

It was extremely_ uncanny._

He looked back at his reflection and he immediately noted that it changed. It was a image of his own self, an exact copy of how he looked right now. But now to his right was his smiling nine year old and to his left stood the one in ANBU gear, but devoid of blood and his ninjato was sheathed. His grandmother once said that when you stop to think about something, even the most mundane of things, you'll find a strange melancholy about it, creating questions you never once thought of. He never understood before but now it was different.

Who was he? Was he truly one of the three boys reflected on the water or all of them at once?

He knew he was neither good or evil, just one who understood that he had to do what was necessary. But did necessary mean right or wrong?

What did he really want? Ever since he was nine, he had no answer at all. It was just train to become stronger, do his duties, serve the village. But did he really want to continue like that? Did he want something else out of life than mindless servitude? Did he even want to chose whether or not he could be good or bad? Did he want to change everything?

Naruto didn't have an answer because he didn't know.

"I see something in your future as well. One day, sooner or later, you'll make a hard choice. One that will determine the future of the world and the paths of many others. There are two solutions to it that you will find. Both will make you suffer, but it is inevitable. The choice will be a test of morals, beliefs and what you deem is necessary. Beyond whatever consequences you make, there will be more crossroads and harder journeys ahead of you. The only thing you get out of this are the answers to those questions in your head."

Naruto flinched. That 'mind reading' ability had really unsettled him.

However his melancholy was washed away when twigs snapped and he could hear a low voice cussing pratically everything around it. And then the young man that ran into him in town came stumbling out of the woods to his right.

"F***ing Takahiro. Kami, how can he stand killing kids!? Great, I need a f***ing drink to calm down. S***. How the hell could he be so twisted? That motherf****er is my brother. S***-"

Naruto really didn't want to deal with right now.

End.  
-

Okay, the end of Chapter 11. It took a while but I'm finally done after a month. There's little full on action for the next couple of chapters, but it will be more about training and developping Hinata's fighting style.

One last thing I want to know is that if you guys want Naruto to learn the Hiraishin, the Yondaime's jutsu. I know he seems overpowered in the story compared to his fellow genin so I want to leave the idea undecided for now.

Write in your reviews for your suggestions to it and perhaps some suggestions for the other characters.


	12. A Test of Faith and Determination

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Author's Note: Thank you for all your reviews and suggestions! Since most of you as of now have been for the Hiraishin, I have decided that Naruto will learn it, but it wouldn't be until Part 2 that he would be adept in it. Naruto will begin to learn it in Part 1 however. I'm also editing the Prologue and I may begin editing the first few chapters as well so stay tuned.

Chapter 12

A Test of Faith and Determination

"What do you want?" Naruto demanded in a battle stance, poised to attack.

"Oh, it's you, er, Kintaro. Look, I don't want any trouble, just blowing off some steam." Takashi replied, holding up his hands in defence. "I'm not even armed."

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"Sheesh, you are so paranoid, like my brother. I'll stay five meters away from you, alright?"

"..."

"Ten?"

"... Fine." And so Takashi lay down by the lake's edge with the appropriate distance between them.

"So what are you doing out here alone?" Naruto blinked.

"Alone?" He twisted around to where Satoro was, or once was. "Oh. I just..." Naruto paused. Should he lie? He probably would have except for some strange reason, he couldn't find a good lie despite normally being able to come up with several in a couple of seconds. "I couldn't sleep." he admitted.

"Huh. My siblings were in the Third Shinobi War. My brother was a new chuunin at that time. They fought in it and they get a lot of nightmares."

"Did you fight in it? It's been about thirteen years since it ended." Naruto felt curious about Takashi. He wasn't quite sure why, but Takashi really did seem very different from a lot of the average cold blooded shinobi.

"No. I was still too young. I got to have a childhood, my sister says." The end was added with a bitter tone.

"Is war that bad? I've read stuff that protray it as glorious."

"I've never experienced it myself, but I can say it's hell. All slaughter with no purpose except for vengeance. It all starts with one bad mishap and then it continues on because each side is out for each other's blood because they killed friends and family from either side. That stuff you read is bullshit."

"No need to say it. I know as well. Some of my... family have fought in war. They also hated it." Naruto remembered his uncle and grandmother talking about it often. His uncle lost his father and his two siblings, his grandmother lost her dear sister.

"Sometimes, I think I'm just lucky I was never fully involved. I feel ashamed though. It wasn't fair to my older siblings." Naruto nodded silently.

"Yeah..."

"You know," Takashi chuckled. "You'd think it be old wisemen talking about war in negative view, but it's us young people, the generation that has never gone through it, instead. Maybe if continued to think like this, could we achieve world peace?"

"... I don't know." There were too many complications that were possible, but even though it was wishful thinking, nothing was impossible to Naruto's mind. Takashi looked over to where Naruto was.

"You're really different from when I met you earlier today. Quiet and way more mature. Is this the real you or another facade?"

"... Hn. I would say... Just another side of my face." Takashi raised his eyebrow.

"Interesting way to put it."

"My way of putting it." Takashi chuckled for a moment and looked up into the dark sky.

"... Sometimes I wonder if things were different. Then everything would be better. Everyone could be happy... We could be friends without the differences without our countries and villages; without the possibility of having to kill each other."

"... I can see what you mean." Naruto murmured. Takashi yawned and stood up.

"I've got to get back soon or else I'll never hear the end of it. It's been nice meeting you, but what's your real name?" Naruto stiffened.

"How did you know?"

"I'm a shinobi. We all know the art of lying." he winked with a cheeky smile on his face. Naruto decided to keep his face impassive, though. Takashi was friendly enough... But did he trust him? Naruto could see Takashi was well meaning, open and had a good heart. He was also honest, but not _brutally_ honest, and was not afraid to speak with his mind. Naruto hadn't observed him in action yet though, which made him still wary.

"Name's Naruto." he admitted. "But I'm not going to say my surname." Surnames made one easily recognizable and made up a lot of your identity. Especially clan names like Uchiha and Hyuuga. Nevertheless, Takashi smiled.

"Nice meeting you, Naruto." And he disappeared in a blink of an eye, leaving Naruto alone for the rest of the night.  
-

Hinata woke early. She wasn't normally an early riser, but early morning training changed that. Gai and Lee were up first, unbelievably energetic despite the fact that the sun hadn't risen yet. She yawned and rubbed her eyes. Naruto had gone to bed early, but he didn't sleep until much later in the night. It worried her that when she went to check on him he wasn't there. But a quick scan with the Byakugan showed him alive and well, meditating at a nearby lake.

Kiba had woken up with a grumpy expression on his face and quickly went out for a walk with Akamaru. By the time Hinata started up the fire, pretty much everyone was awake. In Team Ten's tent, Shikamaru was sitting up but was feeling too lazy and too tired to move. Ino scolded him, while Choji went out to help Hinata get breakfast ready. Team Seven managed to climb out of their sleeping bags with little difficulty despite Sakura's yawning and Sasuke's slightly droopy eyes. Only Shino seemed to be perfectly composed. Neji and Tenten were already warming up for training, being used to getting up at the most unholy of hours.

Naruto came around as breakfast was being served. He looked slightly disheveled but fine overall for someone who slept rather badly. He sat down next to Hinata and Shikamaru who were seated around the fire pit with the rest.

"Hey, Naruto," Shikamaru said to his left as he shoved the boiled egg into his mouth. "Where've you been? I can tell that you were long gone before any of us woke up."

"I wasn't tired so I took a walk." he lied. Breakfast was only boiled eggs and some water. A bit bland, but eggs were a good meal in the morning.

"What kind of a person isn't tired at this hour?" Shikamaru grumbled. Naruto shrugged and didn't answer, but what he had in mind was insomniacs, killers, jinchuuriki, people who had post traumatic stress disorder and namely him.

"All right my youthful students!" Gai shouted out, interrupting the conversations around the fire. "Today we will be doing youthful chakra control exercices. Follow me!" And he marched off to the woods with everyone trailing after him.

"Gai-sensei," Tenten called out after a few minutes had gone by. "Where are we going?"

"You will see!" They walked for another few minutes before coming to the lake where Naruto had been. Kiba let out a low whistle.

"This is nice." he said. Naruto hadn't noticed before, but now that the sun was up, it gave it a warm glow and a slight sparkle from the reflection of the light.

"Yosh! Now that we're here, I want you to sprint from one end of the clearing and do forty push-ups, then run to the other side and do forty sit-ups. When you run back to the end were you've done your push-ups, do thirty-nine, then do the same for the sit-ups side. Then thirty-eight, thirty-seven, thirty-six and so forth until you reach zero on each side. Got it?" [ A/N: I got this exercise from a sport's camp]

"Hai, Gai-sensei." They all chorused save for mini-Gai.

"Gai-sensei! May I do one hundred on each side?" Lee shouted out.

"Of course, Lee! Do as many as you want as long as your Flames of Youth burn strong!"

"Right, Gai-sensei!" Everyone shook their head at the insanity as Lee immediately raced forward to one end to begin. Then they all jogged to right end (the push-up end) to start.

"Go!" Gai said, initiating the exercise. It was an hour and a half before anyone finished, Neji and Tenten finishing first. Naruto finished a few minutes after them with Sasuke in tow. Most of the boys (even Lee with his extras) finished before the girls, much to their chagrin. [A/N: I'm not trying to be sexist but I just basing this on their physical level in which the Rookie Nine girls not being as physically orientated, yet. Things such as speed and strength seem to be lower for them.]

'Well the warm up could've been worse. What's he planning?' Naruto thought.

"Yosh! Now we will be doing some special chakra control exercises!" Gai shouted as the rest finished up. "How many of you haven't mastered tree climbing and water walking?"

"Asuma-sensei showed us the basics, but we're still practicing it." Ino said.

"Kakashi-sensei has also demonstrated us the fundamentals. We are currently at an adequate level." Shino supplied.

"Kurenai-sensei taught us both about a couple of weeks ago so we need some practice at just water walking, but Naruto's already good with both." Kiba said.

"Good! Then we'll practice for those who need to work on both tree climbing and water walking. The rest who feel confident in their abilities will meet at the center of the lake for more instructions. Those who want to practise the basics, go to my left. Those who will do the advanced training go to my right."

Kiba, Hinata, Choji and Shikamaru chose to go to the left, while the rest went to the right: all of Team Seven, all of Team Nine, Naruto and Ino.

"Now," Gai turned to the small group on the left. "Which of the two exercises do you need to work on?"

"Water walking is a problem for me." Kiba shrugged and Hinata nodded.

"Same thing with us." Choji added.

"All right! Practice on the lake until I deem you ready to continue on with the Power of Youth!" Gai said loudly and turned to the group on the right. "We will meet in the middle of the lake so I can explain the new chakra control exercises."

Group One (the ones who had been on the left) immediately began to practice while Group Two waited at the middle as Gai helped set up Group One. Then after he was done he jogged over to explain the next exercise.

"What we will be doing today is waterfall climbing!" Jaws fell open as the genin gaped, wishing they were in Group One. "You will climb up the waterfall using all four limps with chakra as it is rather hard to get a good grip on the wet surface. You may walk or you can climb which ever way you want. Once you are done, you can continue on with whatever jutsu you are practicing or..." He made a Good Guy pose with a huge, shiny grin and a big thumbs up. "Climp up again with weights!"

Everyone decided not to even think about the latter. Coincidentally, Lee already wore a huge amount of weight on his legs.  
-

Naruto admitted that he had severely underestimated the sheer resistance the water that poured over the cliff created. The waterfall itself was nearly vertical with a small amount of itself pushing forwards, so the water ran down, covering everything.

He grunted as he pushed another hand upwards. He was barely two thirds of the way there and his chakra and muscles already had a very uncomfortable strain on them despite his abnormal stamina. Group One was just starting now, much to their reluctance.

Gai stood patiently at the bottom, ready to catch anyone who fell. Just before they began, Gai made it clear that they were not to attempt this exercise alone. Falling into water from a great height could still be dangerous and Gai wanted to make sure no accidents would happen while he was around.

He was also right about having to use chakra to stick to the rock. It was very smooth from the constant barrage of water that had eroded any roughness away. You had to be very stupid not to use chakra. Walking upwards also did not work as it only allowed more water to hit you.

Naruto clung to the rock wall, taking a short break while channeling an even amount of chakra to his hands and feet. It was a fairly intermediate exercise for chakra control as you had to channel it to four spots instead of two and still maintain a good balance between each point.

He looked down for a moment, all of Team Ten were around half of the way up, the physical part of the exercise only seemed to favor Choji the most with Shikamaru and Ino not being as physically orientated. Tenten was near the bottom, having fallen down a few minutes ago. Shino Aburame was a few meters down. Sakura was also starting again with Kiba and Hinata. Neji and Sasuke were his level sparking something of a rivalry between the two Rookies of the Year. Naruto ignored it when it turned to him, he didn't think much of rivalries. Lee was amazingly three quarters of the way there, but seemed to be close to losing control from chakra exhaustion. However he refused to be hindered by it.

'That guy's got some iron will.' Naruto thought as he increased his pace. Sasuke and Neji also were close to losing their grip from the same problems Lee was having. And just like him, they refused to fall just for the sake of their pride.

It had been four hours since they'd started, their pace being immensely slow and the waterfall being about four hundred meters tall. Their climb wasn't completely agonizing, but it was a little more than antagonizing. The late morning sun shined bright in the sky as the genin continued their climb.

Lee later finished an hour later with a loud cheer from Gai despite the difference in altitude. Another hour later, Naruto finished, exhausted with aching limbs. Ten minutes later, the Hyuuga and Uchiha prodigies appeared and collapsed at the dry edge at the same time, each holding their own steely glares for each other. Unfortunately, nobody else finished by the time Gai called for a lunch break. The closest being Shino at three quarters of the way having slipped and lost some progress.

Gai got the genin still climbing up the waterfall down while Lee, Sasuke, Naruto and Neji managed to get down just fine. All the genin sat around the lake while Gai began a lecture on rationing food when times got tough or when they had little supplies to use from. It was fairly simple and he showed them the bare minimal amount one would need to survive. Everyone decided then that they would appreciate a good meal more. Naruto quietly approached Gai as he sat down to eat his lunch.

"Gai-sensei," Naruto said in a low voice. "Can I have a word with you?"

"Of course," he replied. "What is it?" he asked once they were out of hearing range, far enough for Kiba to not be able to hear their discrete conversation.

"This concerns Hinata..."  
-

Hinata had no idea about what had transpired, until lunch finished and Naruto came over towards her. She was going to walk on to the lake when he suddenly placed a hand on her shoulder. She let a small gasp and spun around to meet his intense blue eye.

"We're training elsewhere." he said. Hinata blinked.

"B-but, what about t-the-"

"We'll work on that another day. Now, follow me." And he walked off into the forest. She paused for a moment and then followed him cautiously. What was he up to?

Then they both came to a nice, grassy, open clearing, much like the training grounds at home. Naruto turned back to face her.

"Starting from now on, you will be having one on one training sessions with me for the rest of this training trip. This may or may not continue on when we return to Konoha, unless we have Kurenai-sensei's permission. Do you understand?" Hinata could not help but blink again. What's going on?

"D-does this mean y-you're training me f-from now on?"

"Hai."

"Why?" This time Naruto paused for a moment.

"... It's because of your status as a jinchuuriki. We are weapons to our village and complete every mission they give us. There is no such thing as the word no to the will of our village. We protect, kill, massacre. If you want to survive, then you must be strong." Naruto stopped for a moment with a serious expression in his eyes. He seemed like he had more reasons, but decided not to say anymore. "Do you want to live?"

Suddenly, Hinata felt the reality of the situation she was in. She was a jinchuuriki, different from everyone else aside from Naruto. She held immense amounts of power she could not access yet, but it existed. That's what mattered to the higher ups. She had responsabilities she had never even thought of and only recently appeared in her head. She could refuse the inevitable hell Naruto was likely to put her through, but Hinata knew that she wanted and had to get stronger no matter what.

She knew that she wanted to live. Everyone did.

"Hai. I do want to live." she replied quietly and surprised herself by not stuttering at all. Naruto gazed intensely straight into her eyes. She gulped, but refused to lower them. There was a pause in the air, then Naruto spoke.

"Then, show me your will." And he launched himself at her and kneed her brutally in the stomach before she could react. Hinata tumbled backwards, hard. She finally stopped on her side, gasping heavily for breath.

'He's really serious...' She thought hazely. Then her pale eyes snapped open to see Naruto standing over, his fist poised to strike her. Hinata managed to roll away in time as his fist slammed into the ground, creating a prounouced little crater in the earth. She lept to her feet, her hands formed the seal for her Byakugan.

"Byakug-" Then a punch smacked straight into her forehead, clanging hard against the metal of her forehead protector. Dazed she wobbled back and managed to deflect the next punch, if only barely.

"None of that." Naruto said as Hinata slipped unsteadily into her Gentle Fist stance. She focused on him warily. A mild killing intent seeped out to her, making her shiver. Nothing like what Zabuza had put out that day at the lake, but it seriously unsettled her. What was he doing? "If you want to live, come at me with the intent to kill."

Then he charged forward. He threw another straightfoward fist that smashed harshly into her guard. Hinata grunted from the force of the punch, it was almost enough to break her arm. Naruto's knee came up and she moved to the side to avoid it. She was so not going to block that after seeing what his punch did to her and she was not delusional enough to believe that she could block with both arms and prevent it from smashing into her stomach again.

Hinata threw out a blind counter filled with chakra to his chest despite not being able to target him properly. He easily pushed the oncoming arm to the side and threw a low kick to her knee. She fell to one knee as pain flared in her other leg.

"You are not going to survive if you have little faith in your attacks." Naruto said in a harsh tone. Hinata flinched hard from those words as she got up. Naruto slipped into a basic stance letting more killing intent to the air. This time, he waited for her to come at him instead. He noticed the glint of fear in her eyes as she continued to hesitate in advancing. "Well? Come at me."  
-

Gai smiled as he saw Shino and Kiba make it to the top this time. Then he sighed inwardly as he felt a spark of killing intent in the distance. Naruto no doubt. After getting to watch the jinchuuriki of the Nanabi for the past few days, he seriously did not think that she would be able to formulate any killing intent of any sort to even frighten a mouse. He had come to enjoy her kind and gentle nature, but sometimes he would wonder about her choice to be a shinobi. Unlike many others back at the village, he never ever felt that the jinchuuriki in his care was monster like they whispered amongst themselves.

Sadly, something different would seen in Naruto. Gai had been on missions with him and held a great deal of respect for him for his skills, his dedication to the mission and his intense will to protect his few actual comrades. However his lethal, efficient ruthlessness when it came to killing was probably what offset him the most. Gai knew of course the kinds of missions he recieved were not his fault and that Naruto would normally attempt to avoid violent confrontations. But when things got bad, Naruto was the _first_ one to draw blood on his sword, the _first_ to slit a throat, the _first_ to break a neck, the _first_ to kill. It absolutely shook him to the core when he first saw the then eleven year old snap a guard's neck without blinking his eye behind the snarling fox mask. Many things were said differently about him, some would come closer to the truth without ever knowing so.

Gai truly began to worry about the two when Naruto had approached him during lunch.

xxxxx Flashback xxxxx

_"This concerns Hinata..." Gai frowned and a serious look in his face appeared, wiping away any trace of the overly energetic man._

_"Does this concern you as jinchuuriki?" he asked._

_"Yes, this does." Naruto replied stonily._

_"What did you need to do?"_

_"I need you to release us from your training regime so that I can train her full time."_

_"Why so?" Gai was confused, but could grasp some concept on the young boy's reasons. Just not enough however for him to stop supervising them._

_"You should know why- no, wait. Sorry, it is confidential right now, but I need her to get stronger right now for more than one reason. The life of a jinchuuriki is much harder than a regular shinobi's and that is saying a lot. She needs to be much stronger if she is going to live to a good age." Naruto paused. "Scratch that. An opportunity to live a life."_

_"... Is this because of the Black Ops?" Gai said quietly._

_"... Yes and no. There are... personal and classified reasons." Naruto replied in a guarded tone. Gai looked at him for a moment._

_"You'll never tell me your true reasons, will you?"_

_"No."_

_"... I understand. You will be in charge of her training for the rest of the trip."_

_"Thank you, Gai-senpai."_

xxxxx End xxxxx

That honorific hadn't been used by him in ages, but it actually addressed him much more appropriately than sensei. Gai smiled as his female student reached the top in the end.

"Wait to go, Tenten!" His loud voice booming out his congratulations.  
-

Naruto narrowed his eye as she charged towards him, Byakugan activated and palm outstreched, laced with chakra. She was fine until doubt reappeared in her eyes and it quickly spread to the rest of her body, slowing her down and making her poised strike weaker.

This would not do. Not at all.

He grabbed her outstretched hand roughly and painfully twisted around her back. Then he pushed her down on the grass and pinned her. She whimpered slightly as his grip tightened and the pressure on his knee he used to keep her pinned increased.

"I thought I told you to have more faith in your attacks." His voice was cold, very cold. She winced under him.

"There's n-no p-point in t-trying t-to fight you. I-I'm going t-to l-lose a-anyways." she said so quietly that he almost didn't hear her.

"I thought you wanted to live." His harsh tone wasn't slacking off. He leaned down to her ear. "If you think that just training hard will be enough, you are wrong."

Hinata didn't answer. He already knew that she knew that. However, her lack of self-confidence was still a major problem and only she could change it. Naruto was disappointed when she didn't resist much when he carried her towards a tree and placed her next to it. Then he went through an assortment of hand seals and then grabbed her right wrist. He raised his left hand and slammed it down onto her right hand.

**"Sealing Arts: Body Bind Seal."**

The intricate markings grew out of where Naruto had touched her hand. It spread outwards until it went onto the tree and as far as the middle of her forearm. Hinata tried to pull back her hand and her eyes widened when she couldn't.

"This will be your last chance. All you have to do is to seperate your hand from the tree before the sun sets. I know that you won't be that crazy to cut it off."

"A-And if I-I f-fail?" she murmured.

"You fail," he replied in his icy tone. "There will be no punishment. But that means you've failed." Naruto was fairly sure that this would hit a nerve on the girl. He had taken a large gamble with the spar in trying to get her self-confidence up, but it failed when he somehow overestimated the low level of confidence. He honestly didn't want to treat her this way, but now it was do or die in the world, especially for their kind. Naruto grew up fast and adapted and Hinata was definitely the late bloomer of the two, an intolerable and dangerous position. He had no idea whether or not he should've taken it slow or give her one big push. However, choosing the big push was his only option as Danzo's influence was growing and he would never have peace if the day he was named Hokage became reality.

To Naruto's eye, it was not an illusion. That man was relentless towards his goals and would only yield for the sake of the village. He knew that Danzo was recommended as Hokage from the Elders and amongst the few candidates for Hokage, despite his extremist ways.

Naruto sat down, facing her and began his meditation.  
-

Hinata had never seen the jutsu Naruto had used; it was very effective. She could barely get her elbow to twitch as the rest of the strange seal pinned her hand and forearm. She tried to pull it away but failed when her hand didn't move an inch.

"If you want to get out of the seal, use your chakra to overload it." Naruto said suddenly. Hinata blinked and followed his advice by channeling chakra into the seal. She could feel the strength in her arm now, even if the chakra was being suppressed. More chakra channeled into her arm, still hindered within.

Hinata strained hard against the seal, willing it to break. The seal held steadfast against her and she stopped with sweat beginning to drip down her forehead from the exertion. However, Hinata felt that the seal had indeed become looser when she poured the chakra into the seal as it attempted to restrain the energy. Not by much, but it was some progress.

It was two hours later, around three o'clock, where she began to feel light headed from exhaustion. Hinata had tugged, yanked, pulled her arm away from the seal in almost every way possible as she tried her best to overload the seal. The seal weakened for a moment when it happened, but as soon as she stopped, it reverted back to its original strength. An absolutely frustrating fact. Naruto raised an eyebrow at the exhausted kunoichi.

"Giving up already?" he asked from his meditating position.

"No." she grunted in response as she gave another tug in vain and settled down against the tree. About two thirds of her chakra reserves were already gone. At this rate, she wouldn't have enough chakra by sunset. "I d-don't know." she lamented.

"Don't."

"D-Don't what?"

"Give up," he replied looking into her eyes this time. "If this was a mission, giving up means death."

Silence reigned for the next hour. Naruto's words began to sink deep into her conscience and somehow she found newfound strength within the hour, pushing herself harder to break free. In the latest burst of chakra, Hinata could feel the seal receding and her arm loosening. She gasped and stopped a minute later, breathing hard.

She felt like passing out now, but steeled herself to focus her vision. She could not pass out now that she had made much more progress. Another hour and a half went by and no other attempt she made was as good as the last one. Hinata's chakra was only a tenth full now.

"The sun is starting to set." Naruto commented and she looked over to the high mountains in the background. It was indeed beginning to. Hinata struggled harder and harder against the seal until the last of her chakra began to release itself in blue wisps of energy around the bound arm. Seconds later, it stopped and she gasped for breath as she clung to consciousness. "And it seems like you've run out of chakra." Hinata was far too tired to answer and far too busy trying to keep herself awake at the moment.

"Tell me," Naruto continued after a minute passed. "Are you going to give up?" Hinata managed to look up at him blankly. Then she drooped down, unable to answer.

"I hope you don't, because... I believe in you." Hinata's head shot in surprise. "I believe in your goals to show the rest of your clan that you are not a failure, that you are worthy of being recognized for who you are. I believe that you can go farther than anyone else, that you can become one of the strongest kunoichi in history. I believe that you are more than a tool to our village, your clan and the Fire Country. And I do believe that you will be able to break through this seal, even if it happens only in the future. But you'll never be able to do those things I believe in if you don't believe in yourself." He kneeled down in front of her and met her eyes with his only single piercing blue eye.

"We're going to try again tomorrow since you're out of chakra, so I'm going to-"

"W-Wait," Hinata suddenly interrupted. "L-Let m-me t-try again. I... I t-think I can do it t-this time."

Naruto blinked, then he inwardly smiled.

"Alright then." He backed off and sat a few meters away from her. It seems like she finally got it.

Hinata closed her eyes and meditated, feeling around for her chakra reserves. She would not fail. She refused to fail anymore and now she would only walk forwards. Naruto's words inspired her more than she would probably have the courage to admit. Someone believed in her this time, she would not disappoint him.

Hinata reached out for her meager reserves. It couldn't be possible that she was already empty. She was a jinchuuriki for Kami's sake! There was suppose to be huge amounts of chakra somewhere even if they were sealed up or out of her reach! She looked deeper into her mind. It was somehow instinctive when she first learned about meditation by the Hyuuga.

However, she did not expect for a large forest to form around her. Hinata looked around wildly. It was like she was actually there, standing on the grass with tall trees surrounding her and a breeze whistling through the air. The sky was light blue, indicating daytime.

'Where am I?' Hinata thought. All of it was too real, extremely unnerving. Curious, she began to walk in one direction, unaware of where she was. There were no living creatures she could detect, only trees.

In a few minutes or maybe a few hours (time was so disorienting here), she came to a wooden dam. It looked very much like a beaver's dam, messy, made of logs and branches of all sides and held together through sticky mud. What made it really different was the fact that it was all shaped into a massive dome and away from it led a dried up river.

'What?' she thought as she slowly approached the massive structure. It loomed over her, easily dwarfing the Hokage's Mansion and perhaps even the Hokage Monument.

Hinata stopped right in front of the bizarre dome. She was looking for chakra, right? Then what was...

Oh. A crazy idea hit her hard. A dam normally contained water, but was this a representation for chakra? If so... That was a lot of chakra and things that held a lot of chakra were...

Oh Kami. She was standing right in front of it, only seperated by a wall of mud and wood. So not a comfort to know. There came a faint laughter from within, taunting her. It was almost too quiet to hear, but now she was paying all of her attention to the dome right in front of her.

Chakra. The energy swarmed through the walls, she could feel it containing the mass of power behind it, containing the beast within. She needed some of that power.

Carefully, Hinata took hold of a rugged branch jutting out of the crude dome. Then she began to pull against the jammed piece of wood. A slight whooshing feeling was felt around her stomach as a few drops of water slipped out underneath the loosened mud. Chakra slowly poured back into her system as the leak grew. Fighting down the worsening anxiety, she pulled harder at the branch, until it gave out with one mighty jerk.

It came with a large spout of water that immediately sprayed itself along the dried up riverbed surrounding the rugged structure. The whooshing feeling increased painfully in Hinata's gut and a burning sensation began to spread around her body. She panicked at the immense pain that pulsed through her body and the wooden dam faded into darkness along with everything else.  
-

Naruto eyed Hinata carefully as she instinctively slipped into meditation and then into what he knew as the inner mind or subconscious. He didn't have to enter her own mind to know where she was now. An impressive display of her advancing connection to her Tailed Beast. It took him months to finally meet Kurama after first attempting to contact him willingly.

However his feeling of pride for his fellow jinchuuriki had to be set aside for worry when her chakra started to replenish itself before blowing up to a huge gust of chakra that poured out of her. He almost panicked when the chakra swirling around Hinata began to curl and wrap her in a weak shroud of chakra, protecting her against any threat.

Naruto was halfway through his hand seals when she finally moved and seized up. Judging by her gritting teeth, she was trying to not scream out at the pain. Then miraculously, the huge influx of chakra shifted towards her bound arm held to the tree by his seal. The complex, black markings began to glow a bright red, showing the immense strain from the chakra output.

Hinata struggled harder against the imprisoning seal. The formulated lines towards the base of the seal gave way and seperated from it. Then the entire seal destabilized and receded from the palm of her hand. Eventually with one last tug, her hand broke free and the seal collapsed and exploded on the bark of the tree with the remaining energy.

With her chakra completely spent, she blacked out as soon as the seal released. Her head tipped to the side and she slumped against the tree. If Hinata had been conscious for a few more seconds, she would have been the first to see the biggest grin Uzumaki Naruto had made in three years.

"I knew you could do it." he commented as he picked up her small form in his arms. The sun had already gone down by the time the seal broke, but he didn't care. She had just broken through an A-rank seal, that was highly commendable.

It was time to begin the _real_ training.  
-

Finally finished this chapter. If you still have any suggestions for Naruto learning the Hiraishin, you can still put them down in the reviews or PMs. I already have a good idea of what Naruto's fighting style will be and right now and in the next few chapters, I will be working on Hinata's fighting style as well.

**I'm also planning on changing the title. I think it will be called Naruto: A Matter of Two Jinchuuriki to better suit the story. I'll update it in a few days in case you guys don't get the message.**


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